India has placed a lot of emphasis on connectivity and high-speed trains in recent years. As a result of a strong push towards augmenting these facilities, the country is now touting a train that can travel as fast as 180 km per hour.
However, just days before its maiden scheduled journey between the national capital New Delhi and Varanasi – the parliamentary constituency represented by Prime Minister Narendra Modi - the train is at the centre of a controversy.
On Sunday India’s Railways Minister Piyush Goyal posted a video on Twitter of the ‘semi- high-speed train’ named ‘Vande Bharat’ Express “zooming past at lightning speed”, which he said was built under the ‘Make in India’ initiative of the Modi government.
However, a Twitter user pointed out that the video used by Mr Goyal was his video and that the minister had speeded up the original footage of the train.
Abhishek Jaiswal claims to have recorded the video of the train during its second trial run between Delhi and Agra on 20th December 2018.
A well-known fact-check website compared the two videos and posted the result.
The main opposition party, Congress, took a jibe at the government, calling it a ‘lie’.
The train features state-of-the-art facilities, including onboard WiFi connectivity and entertainment, GPS enabled passenger information system, modular toilets and automatic doors. A total of six such trains will be built in India.
This high-speed train is expected to cut the journey time between Delhi and Varanasi by 15 per cent compared to the Shatabdi Express – currently the fastest train in India.
The Vande Bharat Express is scheduled to be flagged off by Prime Minister Modi on February 15.
