The Dilshad Garden-Rithala Metro corridor that connects Japanese Park, the venue of Narendra Modi’s rally, helped Delhi Metro register a significant jump in its ridership on Sunday. The Urban Mass Transit System registered a momentous hike of 43,000 in its ridership. Scores of other attendees joined the venue through other means of transportation as well.
According to Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), the trains carried 13.16 lakh passengers on the day as against 12.73 lakh passengers last Sunday. Thousands of passengers destined to reach Rohini made their way from different corners of the city, leading to a quantum jump in the overall ridership on a non-working day. “Even the ridership on Red line (Dilshad Garden to Rithala) registered a jump of 23,000 passengers than last week. The number of passengers, who travelled on the line on the day were 2.03 lakh as against 1.8 lakh of last Sunday’s,” said a
DMRC spokesperson. People from all walks of life crowded Metro stations in order to hear the BJP leader speak. “Crowds swelled at the interchange stations such as Central Secretariat, Rajiv Chowk and Kashmere Gate and rakes were seen running packed since the morning itself. Though the rally was scheduled to begin at 10 am, the footfall at the interchange stations in the proximity of the venue started soaring from as early as 7 am. The two stations in the proximity of the venue — Rithala and Rohini (West) — registered a jump of over 13,000 passengers (combined) on the day than normal days,” said an official of
Central Industrial Security Force (CISF). Once the rally concluded, people were seen waiting for over half an hour at the two Metro stations just to enter the subway. “As the turnout was enormous, the entry to Metro stations took a lot of time. Many among the crowd were seen flocking to other Metro stations such as Rohini (East) to avoid waiting for long. Even the Traffic Police had a difficult time managing the crowd around the venue,” added the official.