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Updated: Dec 26, 2018 19:35 IST

Forget the bullet train, fix the existing ones first. That was crux of a long video rant by Laxmi Kanta Chawla, a BJP leader from Amritsar, who had been stuck on the Saryu-Yamuna train for more than 10 hours.

The video that has now gone viral on social media shows her sitting in the train and talking about the problems that she and the passengers had to face during the inordinately long train ride.

“Forget the bullet trains and focus on the ones that are already running,” she says in the video.

Chawla, a former Punjab minister who held the health portfolio and then the social welfare portfolio, was travelling in an AC-3 coach on the Saryu-Yamuna train when she made the video.

“This train was once known as the Flying mail. I don’t remember when it used to fly to its destination. Today it’s been 24 plus 8 hours in this train and we still haven’t reached our destination. It’s running 9 hours late.

Watch: BJP leader’s message to PM after hellish train ride

“My appeal is to PM Modi and the government is, please have some pity on us common people. The trains are in such a dilapidated condition, the doors are broken, the latrine taps are broken, the toilet seats are broken... The train’s route had to be changed due to some reason. We have not been given any information. There is no food arrangement in the train for the people who have been on it for the last 10 hours,” she said.

“For God’s sake, forget bullet trains. Forget trains that run at 120kmph or 200 kmph. Fix those trains that are already there,” Chawla said.

She went on to speak about the appalling conditions at the railway stations.

“There is no waiting room and people are forced to wait for their trains on the platforms in the biting cold, Piyush Goyalji and Modiji,” Chawla said.

She even went on to criticise the railway helplines that had been advertised, saying that she had called up the helplines and had even mailed Piyush Goyal but to no avail as no help has been provided so far.