Mumbai: In the aftermath of the stampede which killed 22 people on Friday, MNS president Raj Thackeray on Saturday called Prime Minister Narendra Modi a “liar” and warned that he would not allow the Bullet Train project till all suburban commuters’ issues are resolved.
“I shall not allow even a brick for the Bullet Train project to be laid. First resolve all the basic problems of Mumbai commuters. If Modi wants, let him construct it in Gujarat. If they use force, we shall also retaliate,” an agitated Thackeray said.
In a sharp attack on the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Thackeray said Modi had changed all his statements before and after the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
“We have never seen a PM who is such a big liar. He made big promises and then dismissed them as ‘election jumlas’. How much can a person lie in this fashion?”
The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) president claimed that Suresh Prabhu was replaced by Piyush Goyal as the railway minister only to push through the Bullet Train project.
“This Goyal is useless, Prabhu was good,” he added.
Thackeray announced that he would personally lead a morcha to Churchgate on October 5 to oppose the Bullet Train plans and urged all Mumbaikars to participate in large numbers.
After the deadly stampede on Friday, there have been sharp reactions from across the public and political spectrum on priority being accorded to the expensive Bullet Train project vis-a-vis providing basic amenities to Mumbai’s daily eight million plus railway commuters.