PM Modi hasn’t credited first metro rail service in the country to Atal Bihari Vajpayee - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
January 7, 2021
A post is being circulated on social media claiming that Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his latest speech, credited first metro services in the country to the Late PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Let’s verify the claims made in the post.
Claim: PM Narendra Modi credited first Metro service in the country to Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Fact: PM Modi while addressing the inauguration ceremony of driverless train operations on Delhi Metro’s Magnet line, credited the first operational Delhi Metro rail service to the Late PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He hasn’t credited the first metro service in the country to Vajpayee. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
When we searched for this statement of PM Narendra Modi on the internet, we found that PM Narendra Modi while addressing the inauguration ceremony of driverless train operations on Delhi Metro’s Magenta line, spoke about the efforts to make Delhi Metro services operational. In his speech, Modi said that the first Metro in Delhi ran because of the efforts of Atal ji. At 16:16 minute of this video, we could hear PM Modi making this statement about the efforts to bring Delhi Metro services into operation. Press Information Bureau (PIB) also released the English rendering of PM Modi’s speech at this ceremony. In the speech, Narendra Modi referring only the Delhi Metro rail services while crediting to Vajpayee.
‘ANI’ news first posted a tweet reporting that PM Narendra Modi in his speech, credited the first metro rail services in India to Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Later, ‘ANI’ tweeted a correction saying PM Modi referring Delhi Metro rail services in his speech, not the first metro rail services in India.
Correction | First metro in Delhi* was started with the efforts of Atal Ji. When our govt was formed in 2014, only 5 cities had metro services & today 18 cities have metro rail service. By 2025, we will take this service to more than 25 cities: PM Narendra Modi pic.twitter.com/snv7PFkQBW
On 29 December 1972, the first metro rail services foundation stone was laid in Kolkata by the Late PM Indira Gandhi. This first metro service came into operation on 24 October 1984. Sharing the images of the inauguration ceremony of this first metro services in India, ‘The Telegraph’ news website published an article on 25 October 2014.
To sum it up, PM Narendra Modi in his speech credited Atal Bihari Vajpayee for the first Metro rail service operations in Delhi, not the entire country.