Shiv Sena decries project as a waste of funds

Criticising the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project that was unveiled in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, yesterday the Shiv Sena has said India’s central government should focus on safety and the efficient running of existing trains in the country.

“Every day there are train accidents and derailments in our country — and people get killed and injured — yet this government is focusing on projects like the bullet train,” stated an editorial in the Sena’s mouthpiece, Saamana.

Though the Sena is an ally of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) at the Centre and in Maharashtra, it criticised the project and said it was not a dream project of the common Indian but that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

‘Modi’s dream’

The editorial came on the day Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe laid the foundation stone of India’s first bullet train project in Ahmedabad.

“We are getting a bullet train without asking for it. We do not know exactly which problem will this project solve,” the Sena said. The editorial also said the high-speed bullet train project is being realised over and above the demands for rail projects in the Vidarbha, Marathwada and Konkan regions of Maharashtra.

The Sena described it as Modi’s expensive “dream project” which will “loot the nation of Rs1,080 billion [Dh61.74 billion].”

According to the Sena, the newly appointed Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, also the BJP treasurer, has been specially brought in for the project.