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As Congress and BJP face-off over buses for migrant workers to the state, Rajasthan Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot reacting to the incident said that it is unfortunate that the Uttar Pradesh government is not allowing buses for migrant workers.
“If Congress is arranging food and buses for people, every government should welcome it. Not giving permission at borders, arresting leaders and doing petty politics, is it justified? It is unfortunate that the Uttar Pradesh government is not allowing buses,” Pilot said.
Earlier in scathing attack, Pilot slammed the centre of doing politics over the issue of migrant labourers and derided it for not coming up with a concrete policy to help the workers, even after weeks of the coronavirus-induced lockdown.
On Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman describing former party president Rahul Gandhi’s interaction with a group of migrant labourers in Delhi as “dramebaazi”, Pilot said the remark was condemnable.
He said, “Sharing someone’s grief, helping someone, arranging buses for them… when did it become a show-off?”
“We should be united in this time of crisis but the central government and their leaders are doing politics over these workers by making uncalled for statements,” he said.
“The central government should work together (with the states) to wipe the tears of migrant labourers. It should ensure that the labourers reach their homes. They are disappointed, unemployed and running short on food,” Pilot remarked.
In another reaction, senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Ahmed Patel has said that the Uttar Pradesh government and state administration were opposing party leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra just because she wants to help the migrant labourers.
“Uttar Pradesh government, its administration and some media channels are opposing Priyanka Gandhi and Uttar Pradesh Congress leaders because they want to help the troubled and helpless migrant labourers,” Patel tweeted in Hindi.
उत्तर प्रदेश सरकार, उसका प्रशासन और कुछ मीडिया चैनल प्रियंका गांधी और उत्तर प्रदेश के कांग्रेस नेताओं का केवल इसलिये विरोध कर रहे है कि वो परेशान और बेसहारा श्रमिकों की मदद करना चाहते हैं।
— Ahmed Patel (@ahmedpatel) May 20, 2020
The Congress reply, comes a day after Uttar Pradesh Cabinet Minister Sidharth Nath Singh said that the list of buses given by the Congress to ferry migrant workers to their homes consists of many two-wheelers, autos and goods carriers. Singh said that Congress leaders were committing a fraud like this even at such a critical time.
