PM Modi flags off 5 Vande Bharat trains in Bhopal

Bhopal: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday visited Madhya Pradesh capital Bhopal and flagged off five Vande Bharat trains connecting important cities in different parts of the country.

Modi reached Rani Kamalapati railway station in Bhopal from where he flagged off the five trains - two physically and three in virtual mode.

Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, Madhya Pradesh Governor Mangubhai Patel, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Union ministers Narendra Singh Tomar and Jyotiraditya Scindia, among others, were present on the occasion.

"These trains will improve connectivity in Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Goa, Bihar and Jharkhand," Modi said in a tweet on Monday.

This is for the first time so many Vande Bharat trains have been launched in one day.

Two of them are for Madhya Pradesh, where the Assembly polls are due by the year-end.

These semi high-speed trains are: Rani Kamalapati (Bhopal)-Jabalpur Vande Bharat Express, Khajuraho-Bhopal-Indore Vande Bharat Express, Madgaon (Goa)-Mumbai Vande Bharat Express, Dharwad-Bengaluru Vande Bharat Express, and Hatia-Patna Vande Bharat Express, as per an official statement.

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, state BJP media in-charge Ashish Agrawal said.