Modi slams Train 18 critics
VARANASI VISIT
VARANASI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday lashed out at the people, who made fun of the country’s first locally built semi high-speed train after it broke down on Saturday on its way back to New Delhi from Varanasi following its inauguration a day earlier.
“Some persons are targeting and mocking at the semi-high speed train. This is unfortunate. This is an insult to engineers and technicians involved in the project. People should remain alert against such persons who are insulting engineers and technicians and mocking the country,” Modi said in his Parliamentary constituency – Varanasi. He asked the people not to get “demoralised by those surrounded by negativity”.
“I salute engineering professionals, who will in the future make a bullet train in India and run it also...i am getting letters of people who are hurt,” Modi said.
“Is it right to insult engineers and technicians? Is mocking them right? Can they be pardoned? Should they not be given the right punishment at the right time.”
Congress chief Rahul Gandhi had called the Make in India campaign, under which the highspeed train has been built, a failure after the Vande Bharat
Express broke down. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, too, had on Sunday referred to the snag to criticise the government over issues like unemployed.
Separately, Modi invoked Sant Ravidas on the 16th-century mystic poet’s birth anniversary to call for an end to caste discrimination as he launched projects worth ₹3,382 crore in Varanasi. He called for identifying those promoting caste prejudice.
“Guruji [Sant Ravidas] said there should be no discrimination on the basis of caste. Until
caste discrimination is there, people cannot connect with each other, social harmony is not possible and equality cannot be ensured,” Modi said in his address after laying the foundation stone for an area development project named after Ravidas in Varanasi.
Modi paid tributes to Central Reserve Police Force trooper Ramesh Yadav, who was from Varanasi and among those killed in the attack on a security forces’ convoy in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama last week.