Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): PM Modi flagged off five Vande Bharat Express trains - two physically and three in virtually from Rani Kamalapati Station in Bhopal on Tuesday. This is for the first time so many Vande Bharat trains have been launched in a day.
Two of them are for Madhya Pradesh. Modi reached Rani Kamalapati railway station and flagged off semi-high-speed Rani Kamalapati (Bhopal)-Jabalpur Vande Bharat Express, and Bhopal-Indore Vande Bharat.
On the occasion, Modi also virtually flagged off three other Vande Bharat trains namely Ranchi-Patna, Dharwad-Bengaluru and Goa (Madgaon)-Mumbai Vande Bharat Express.
For the first time, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Goa have been included in the list of Vande Bharat trains. Before flagging off the trains, Modi interacted with students on board one of the Vande Bharat trains here and the train staff. There were 376 school students in the two Vande Bharat express which gave them free ride to Jabalpur and Indore.
BJP workers present at the railway station chanted ‘Modi-Modi’ as the Prime Minister gave green signal to the trains. The PM did not give ant public speech at the launch of the five trains. On this occasion, Governor Mangubhai Patel, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav, union aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and others were present.
Earlier, after arriving at the Bhopal airport in the morning, Modi was scheduled to reach the Rani Kamalapati railway station by helicopter, but because of bad weather he left for the venue by road. On April 1, PM had launched first Vande Bharat train of Madhya Pradesh, running between Bhopal and Delhi.
With the launch of two more Vande Bharat trains, now the state have three such train services which have cut down the travel time from Bhopal to Delhi, Jabalpur and Indore.
'Dog-whistle politics': Opposition parties slam PM Modi's UCC remarks
Congress General Secretary (Organisation) K C Venugopal said the prime minister should first talk about poverty, price rise, and unemployment.
"He will never talk about Manipur where violence has continued for the past over 50 days. He has not spoken even a word about Manipur. These are to distract people's attention from all these issues," he said. CPI General Secretary D Raja said Modi's attempt is to polarise the society ahead of Madhya Pradesh elections. "It shows his desperation," he said. Senior RJD MP Manoj K Jha said called on Modi to "not make these issues an instrument of dog-whistle politics" and said that the prime minister should have studied the Law Commission report and the Constituent Assembly debates prior to speaking on the issue.
Apply To Hindus First": MK Stalin
New Delhi:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's pitch for a uniform civil code has been vehemently questioned by the Congress and its ally, the DMK. The ruling party of Tamil Nadu had contended that a uniform code should first be applied to the Hindus, who will then have to allow people from all castes to pray in temples. "Uniform Civil Code should be first introduced in the Hindu religion. Every person including Scheduled Castes and Tribes should be allowed to perform pooja in any temple in the country. We don't want UCC (uniform Civil Code) only because the Constitution has given protection to every religion," said DMK's TKS Elangovan.