Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh government said the list of 1,000 buses offered by the Congress to ferry migrant workers contained registration numbers of two-wheelers and cars. It once more started a war of words between the UP government and the Congress.
The Congress, however, challenged the UP government to conduct a ‘physical verification’ of the buses it has brought to the state’s border to take stranded workers home.
Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya accused the party of coming up with a scam. “The Congress has got trapped in its own net of deceit,” Maurya tweeted in Hindi.
The UP government’s claim reignited the row over the offer made May 16 by Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. She had said the party wanted to provide 1,000 buses for ferrying migrant workers.
The Congress initially claimed that the state’s BJP government was ignoring the offer with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath even refusing to give an appointment to a party delegation seeking a meeting.
Even while accusing the Congress of playing politics over the plight of workers heading home after the coronavirus lockdown, the UP government on Monday formally accepted the offer.
It asked the Congress to submit a list of the buses, and its drivers and conductors. But that was not the end of the row.
In an email received by Priyanka Gandhi’s private secretary at 11.40 pm Monday, the Uttar Pradesh government asked the opposition party to send the buses to Lucknow by 10.00am Tuesday, according to the Congress.
The aide wrote back to the UP government saying that sending empty buses to Lucknow was ‘inhuman’ and the ‘product of an anti-poor mindset’ when thousands of workers are gathered at UP’s borders.
“This demand of your government seems politically motivated. It does not appear that your government wants to help our labourer brothers and sisters who are facing a disaster,” the letter in Hindi said.
PTI