Show your anger at those who joked about Vande Bharat snag: Modi

Varanasi, Feb 19 (IANS) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday slammed all the people, from politicians to common people, who had joked about the recent technical glitch in the Vande Bharat Express on its maiden return journey, saying they were belittling those behind the country's first indigenous semi-high speed train.

Addressing a large gathering after laying foundation stones and launching projects worth Rs 3,300 crore in his parliamentary constituency Varanasi, he said such people were humiliating hundreds of professionals, engineers and technicians who had worked relentlessly on this project and asked whether such people should be forgiven.

"It is very sad that people with negative mindset are making fun of the hard work that has gone behind the project," Modi said, asking people not to be deterred or disheartened by the attitude of a few.

He also said that he has been receiving letters complimenting the government for the indigenous project and ruing the criticism by some sections.

"At the right time, at the right place, show your anger towards such people," he said, adding that at a time when everyone was working to make a new India, such criticism was unfair.

Congratulating the team of engineers and technicians of the Chennai Rail Coach factory which manufactured the Vande Bharat Express train, he said that it is the hard work of such people and the labourers that double gauging, electrification and laying of tracks had doubled in the past four years.

It is this very set of people will in future make and successfully run the bullet train in India, he said, while also announcing that the 123-km electrification work on the Varanasi-Prayagraj section had been completed.

Modi, who had earlier inaugurated the Mahamana Madan Mohan Malviya Cancer Centre at the Banaras Hindu University in presence of eminent industrialist Ratan Tata and the Homi Bhabha Cancer Hospital at Lahartara, said that now cancer detection and its treatment will be available in Varanasi.

People not only from Uttar Pradesh but also from Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Chattisgarh will also benefit from the two cancer centres, he said.

Addressing a gathering at the Sant Ravidas Temple earlier, the Prime Minister said his government has reversed the country's downslide and changed the attitude of 'sab chalta hai' (anything is acceptable).

He warned people with ill-gotten money and those involved in graft that they would not be spared.

Modi also said that he considered himself fortunate to be representing the constituency and to have come twice to the Ravidas temple in the past few years.

Addressing the followers of Guru Ravidas, the mystic poet-saint of the Bhakti Movement, in Shir Govardhan, the Prime Minister said the area will soon have a community centre, and a new route will be created to the temple.

A 12-km road from the BHU will be beautified and a bronze statue of the seer would also be installed.

Modi also pointed out that his government's mission of 'sabka saath sabka vikaas' has been greatly inspired by Sant Ravidas's values and teachings.

Soon after his arrival at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Airport, where he was welcomed by Governor Ram Naik and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath among others, he flagged off the world's first diesel-to-electric converted locomotive and interacted with a group of disabled people.