The Congress' Uttar Pradesh unit has offered a list of 1,000 buses to the state government which had accused the party of doing politics over the issue of return of migrants to the state.
This came almost as soon as the state government wrote to Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, accepting the party’s offer of running 1,000 buses to ferry migrants to their villages from the borders of the state.
Addressing the media on Monday, party state unit chief Ajay Kumar Lallu charged the state government with ‘insensitivity’ over not responding to the party’s offer of buses for migrants.
“We are ready to offer any help. The government is ignoring the needs of the labourers”, Lallu said.
On May 16, Vadra had written to the state government, saying the party would bear the costs of running 500 buses from the Ghazipur border and a similar number from the Noida border to ferry those stranded at the borders of Delhi-NCR to their homes.
“Labourers, the builders of this nation, cannot be left like this,” the letter had read. This had been followed by a video message in which Vadra had asked Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to eschew politics on the matter. The CM had, in turn, accused of the Congress of doing the same politics by not providing any list of such available buses to the government.
On Monday afternoon, the state government wrote to Vadra’s office asking for the details of the buses, including ‘the names of the drivers, helpers’.
“Your proposal for migrant labourers is accepted,” read the letter issued by the additional chief secretary.
Lallu in his address to the media said: “We are constantly giving the government constructive suggestions and it is being lax in accepting them”.
The Congress state chief also claimed that the party had helped 60 lakh plus people with rations, assisted 7 lakh people stranded outside the state, was running kitchens in 22 districts and had set up 40 stalls to provide water and snacks to the migrants returning to the state.