Forget bullet trains': BJP leader's message to PM Modi after harrowing train ride

New Delhi: A BJP leader’s video rant to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Railways Minister Piyush Goyal from a train delayed by several hours.

"For god's sake, forget the bullet train and focus on the ones already running," says Laxmi Kanta Chawla, a BJP leader from Amritsar.

Chawla, a former Punjab minister, was travelling AC-3 on the Saryu-Yamuna train on December 22 and had been stuck for an extra 10 hours when she made the mobile phone video.

The video that has now gone viral on social media shows her sitting in the train and talking about the problems that she and the passengers had to face during the inordinately long train ride.

“Forget the bullet trains and focus on the ones that are already running,” she says in the video.

“My appeal is to PM Modi and the government is, please have some pity on us common people. The trains are in such a dilapidated condition, the doors are broken, the latrine taps are broken, the toilet seats are broken,” she said.

“The train’s route had to be changed due to some reason. We have not been given any information. There is no food arrangement in the train for the people who have been on it for the last 10 hours,” she added.

“For God’s sake, forget bullet trains. Forget trains that run at 120kmph or 200 kmph. Fix those trains that are already there,” Chawla said.

She went on to speak about the appalling conditions at the railway stations.

“There is no waiting room and people are forced to wait for their trains on the platforms in the biting cold, Piyush Goyalji and Modiji,” Chawla said.

She also criticised railway helplines that had been advertised, saying that she had called up the helplines and had even mailed Piyush Goyal but to no avail as no help has been provided so far.