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Congress Will Scrap Bullet Train Project If Voted To Power In 2019, Says Party Leader Prithviraj Chavan
Congress President Rahul Gandhi along with former Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan. (Vijayanand Gupta/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)
Gearing up for elections next year, former chief minister of Maharashtra and Congress leader Prithviraj Chauhan has said that the party will scrap the bullet train project if voted to power. He also said that the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project is ‘economically unviable’, the Economic Times has reported.
The grand old party has been opposing the bullet train project since the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched it along with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe. Congress has opposed the provision seeking additional Rs 250 crore funds to be added in the state’s share for the project in the state assembly.
“When the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government had ordered the study for it, the cost was about Rs 65,000 crore. After Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government assumed office, it increased to Rs 95,000 crore, and when the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was finally signed with Japan, the cost escalated to a whopping Rs 1,10,000 crore. How, in a span of just four years, did the project cost almost double?,” Chavan is quoted to have said.
It is said that the project has potential to generate at least 20,000 jobs and considered as a pet project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Earlier, the Congress had tried to claim credit for the project.
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