Bhopal-Indore Vande Bharat is only piece of dessert, expect more connectivity: Mahajan

The train was among the five Vande Bharat Express trains flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Bhopal earlier in the day.Speaking at an event to mark the trains arrival here, Mahajan, who represented Indore region eight times in the Lok Sabha between 1989 and 2019, said the Vande Bharat Express should connect the city with Jabalpur, Gwalior, Khajuraho and Surat.I thank the prime minister for launching the Vande Bharat train between Bhopal and Indore....I believe it is a piece of dessert for us, it is not the whole dessert.

Former Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan on Tuesday said the Vande Bharat Express between Bhopal and Indore was just a ''piece of dessert'' for Indore as the city needed more connectivity. The train was among the five Vande Bharat Express trains flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Bhopal earlier in the day.

Speaking at an event to mark the train's arrival here, Mahajan, who represented Indore region eight times in the Lok Sabha between 1989 and 2019, said the Vande Bharat Express should connect the city with Jabalpur, Gwalior, Khajuraho and Surat.

"I thank the prime minister for launching the Vande Bharat train between Bhopal and Indore....I believe it is a piece of dessert for us, it is not the whole dessert. But we will also get the whole dessert,'' she said.

She was confident that in the coming days the Vande Bharat Express will be run from Indore to Jabalpur, Gwalior, Khajuraho and Surat, Mahajan said.

After the event, when asked about the steep fares of the train, Mahajan told reporters, ''A Vande Bharat train with better facilities requires a lot of maintenance. But if this train is run for a long distance, then passengers will not feel it to be very expensive.'' The senior BJP leader also termed the slow pace of the project to convert the meter gauge rail track between Mhow to Khandwa into a broad gauge track a matter of concern. ''The Railway Minister has assured me that he will personally look into the project,'' she said.