'You can place BJP flags on our buses, but let them run': Priyanka targets Yogi over migrants' issue

AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Wednesday upped the ante in her party's clash with the Yogi Adityanath regime on the issue of providing buses to transport migrant workers to their home towns, accusing the Uttar Pradesh government of doing politics on the issue and denying the migrants the opportunity of availing the transportation provided by the Congress.

“Since 4 pm yesterday, our buses are waiting at the Uttar Pradesh border. If you wish, you can place BJP flags and tickets on them. You can even say that you have provided the buses. But please let the buses run,” Vadra said in a video message that came amid an intense exchange of charges and counter-charges between the Congress and the UP government with regard to the buses.

Vadra accused the UP chief minister of bringing up unnecessary issues to delay permission to the buses. “You have been making strange comments and doing politics. During this period, we could have sent thousands of migrant workers home,” she said.

The AICC general secretary in-charge of party affairs in UP said if the chief minister did not give permission to the buses to enter the state with the migrant workers, her party was ready to send the buses back, but added that the Congress will keep helping the migrant workers.

“We had been saying for sometime that the UP Roadways buses should be made available for the migrant workers so that they can reach home safely. On the day when many accidents involving migrants happened, we wrote to the chief minister, saying the Congress would provide thousand buses at the Ghaziabad and Noida border points to take migrant workers from Delhi-NCR to their homes,” Vadra said, giving details of the sequence of events associated with the political clash over the buses.

She said that Adityanath responded the next day, saying the UP Roadways has 12,000 buses and hence they don't need the buses offered by the Congress. “We brought back our buses. The next day, there was a letter from the chief minister asking for a list of the thousand buses and details such as the name of the driver, conductor and fitness certificate. And then at 11:30 pm, we got a letter from him saying the buses should be sent to Lucknow. Now, the entire purpose of taking workers from Delhi-NCR would have been defeated had the buses gone without any passengers to Lucknow,” she said.

She said her party had suggested that the buses be kept ready at Noida, but the politics on the issue then intensified with the UP government saying that there were problems with the list of buses.

“On May 17, as many as 500 buses were ready at the Ghaziabad border. As many as 20,000 people would have reached home had the buses been allowed to ply. Yesterday, we had around 900 buses ready. These buses could have taken 36,000 people home. But we remained stuck in politics,” Vadra said.

The hectic politicking on the issue saw Vadra write as many as nine letters to the UP chief minister. On Tuesday, FIRs were lodged in Lucknow against UP Congress chief Ajay Kumar Lallu and Vadra's aide Sandeep Singh on the charges of giving false information to public servant, dishonesty and forgery for purpose of cheating by the regional transport officer.

“I want to tell the migrant workers that every Congress worker and leader is with you. They will provide you with food and water. We will help you with all our capacity,” Vadra said.