Hours after airstrike, PM Modi takes metro ride to ISKCON event

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday boarded a metro train from Khan Market station on way to attend an event at ISKCON temple in south Delhi’s East of Kailash, officials said.

Modi unveiled a giant Bhagavad Gita, running into 670 pages and weighing 800 kg, at the temple, located near Kailash Colony metro station.

Dubbed the ‘Astounding Bhagavad Gita’, and measuring 2.8 m by 2 m, it is billed as the “largest principle sacred text ever to be printed,” according to ISCKON.

“PM Modi boarded a train from Khan Market metro station on the Violet Line for reaching the venue,” a Prime Minister’s Office source said, adding he deboarded at Nehru Place.

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation said, “The prime minister travelled in Delhi Metro’s Violet Line today. He boarded the metro train at Khan Market station at 4:25 pm and travelled up to Nehru Place metro station, leaving the station at 4:38 pm.”

Inside the coach, he interacted with some of the commuters and posed with them for pictures.

The prime minister after unveiling the Bhagavad Gita, “travelled back by boarding a metro train from Kailash Colony station at 5:45 pm,” the DMRC said, adding that the PM deboarded the train at Khan Market metro station at 5:56 pm.

The International Society for Krishna Consciousness, known colloquially as the Hare Krishna movement, is a worldwide confederation of more than 400 temples and runs 100 vegetarian restaurants and a wide variety of community serving projects.

Tight security arrangements were made in and around the venue, which otherwise is very crowded.

“With an artistic touch of 18 exquisite paintings and an innovative elegant layout, the book has been printed in Milan, Italy, on YUPO synthetic paper so as to make it untearable and waterproof,” the ISKCON said.

Bhagavad Gita, often referred to as the Gita, is a sacred text, revered by the Hindus, and is part of the epic Mahabharata, containing the teachings of Lord Krishna to Arjuna on the battlefield.