Capital gets RRTS, Metro Ph-4 boost ahead of polls

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday inaugurated a bevy of public transit and infrastructure projects worth over ₹12,000 crore in Delhi as he continued a campaign blitz across the national capital days before elections to the state assembly are expected to be announced.

- Paras Singh and Jasjeev Gandhiok

Modi first opened a 13km section of the Delhi-Meerut Regional Rapid Transit System between Sahibabad in Ghaziabad and New Ashok Nagar in the Capital and later inaugurated the Janakpuri West-Krishna Park Extension link of the Delhi Metro, the first stretch under the network's Phase 4.

The Prime Minister also laid the foundation stone of the Delhi Metro's Rithala-Narela-Kundli corridor as well as of a new complex of the Central Ayurveda Research Institute (CARI) in Rohini.

Capping the day with a speech at Japanese Park in the northwest Delhi neighbourhood, Modi slammed the Capital's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government, likened it once again to a disaster and accused it of reigning in the city's, even as he assured voters that a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, if voted to power in the February elections, would not halt any public welfare programmes.

The AAP, in turn, said it was an equal stakeholder in the projects and accused the BJP of not living up to promises it made to Delhi's voters.

The mega infrastructure push follows on from a similar spree on Friday, when Modi inaugurated or started work on projects worth 4,500 crore - 1,675 new flats for the poor in Ashok Vihar; a new CBSE complex in, and new Delhi University campuses in the city's east and west.

On Sunday, the Prime Minister first took a ride on the RRTS, named Namo Bharat, from Sahibabad to New Ashok Nagar in east Delhi, marking the entry of the interstate rapid rail into the national capital.