Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged off the Mahamana Express on Friday from Varanasi, the parliamentary constituency he represents. Named after ‘Mahamana’ Madan Mohan Malaviya, renowned educationist and founder of the Benares Hindu University (BHU), the thrice-a-week superfast train promises to cover the nearly 800-km distance between Varanasi and New Delhi in less than 14 hours. It is the first Express/Mail train to run on the newly-electrified Ghaziabad-Moradabad rail route. The route was electrified in order to reduce traffic on the Delhi-Kanpur-Allahabad route which is already saturated with trains.
