Vidisha Lok Sabha polls: Congress criticises BJP over delayed railway project

Congress criticizes BJP for not starting a Locomotive Traction Alternator Workshop in Vidisha, a project initiated by Sushma Swaraj. The workshop, constructed on the outskirts, remains unused with poor road conditions. Congress candidate Pratap Bhanu Sharma plans to transform it into an electronics hub. BJP counters, citing the Modi government's railway improvements, while the Congress highlights their support for railways. The workshop project was initiated in 2015 by then Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu and Sushma Swaraj. Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Shivraj Singh Chouhan have also represented Vidisha in Parliament. Vidisha Lok Sabha constituency has eight Assembly seats with 19.38 lakh eligible voters.

The Congress has slammed the BJP-led Union government for not starting a Locomotive Traction Alternator Workshop in Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh, which was a pet project of former Minister of External Affairs late Sushma Swaraj.

A huge workshop was constructed near Sagar bypass on the outskirts of Vidisha for the project but it is lying unused and the road leading to it is pothole riddled, local residents said.

''BJP leaders haver no vision and that is why this project is in this condition. It could have become an employment generating manufacturing hub. Once I am elected, I will turn into an electronics and allied units hub after taking the land back from the railways,'' engineer-turned politician and Congress Lok Sabha candidate from Vidisha Pratap Bhanu Sharma told PTI on Wednesday.

Sharma (77), a mechanical engineer who was elected to Parliament from here in 1980 and 1984, is up against former chief minister and BJP stalwart Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Vidisha will go to polls on May 7.

Hitting back, Madhya Pradesh BJP's media cell in-charge Ashish Agrawal said it is the Congress that has not done anything for the railways, and the opposition party was now busy lecturing the Narendra Modi government.

The Modi government had made the country's railway world class with the introduction of high speed Vande Bharat services and other modern amenities for passengers, Agrawal asserted.

In 2015, then Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu, after laying the foundation stone of the Diesel Locomotive Traction Alternator Workshop (DLTAW) in Vidisha, had said his ministry and the MP government would jointly helm what would be the country's first such company to enhance rail services in the state.

At the time, Swaraj, who was MP from Vidisha, had praised then CM Chouhan for providing land speedily and free of cost for the project. Swaraj had said development of her constituency with such projects was her top priority.

Chouhan is contesting his sixth parliamentary polls from Vidisha, which has also been represented by stalwarts like former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1991) and newspaper baron Ramnath Goenka (1971), apart from Swaraj (2009 and 2014).

Chouhan won his first Lok Sabha polls from Vidisha in 1992 after Vajpayee resigned, and went on to win till 2004 before he was made MP CM in 2005.

Vidisha Lok Sabha constituency comprises eight Assembly seats in Vidisha, Raisen, Sehore and Dewas districts.

Of the 19.38 lakh eligible voters in Vidisha, 10.04 lakh are men and 9.34 lakh women.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)