LUCKNOW/KOLKATA: Ending a three-day face-off, the Uttar Pradesh government on Monday accepted the Congress’ offer to run 1,000 buses to transport migrant workers to their native places across the state.
UP additional chief secretary, home, Awanish Awasthi wrote to senior Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra seeking details of 1,000 buses along with the names and details of the drivers and conductors. The buses, belonging to Rajasthan State Road Transport department, will be run by the Congress for which it will bear the entire expenses incurred.
The Congress claimed that they were preparing the list and would provide the details soon. “We welcome the state government’s decision. We have details of the buses. As the state government has sought more details about driver and conductor, we will provide them at the earliest,” said Congress legislature party leader Aaradhna Mishra.
Later, Priyanka tweeted thanking CM Adityanath. But soon, the UP CMO tweeted four posers for the Congress leader, calling her party’s offer as a fake concern. Four posers were put out for Priyanka asking her if Congress was so moved by the sufferings of migrants and that they had 1000 buses, then why migrants were stuffed in trucks while being ferried from Rajasthan and Maharashtra to UP, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal.
As there is a crowd of migrants stranded at its borders, the UP government decided to run trains between districts to take migrants back to their native places across the state. The state would pay Rs 26 crore to the Indian Railways for the plying of ‘Shramik Special’ trains to bring back these migrants from other states.
In Kolkata, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee reached out to other states for providing trains for migrants from Bengal. “We have already initiated measures to send back migrants from other states. I am requesting other states to do the same. We have already requested 105 trains. We will ask the railways to arrange for 115 more trains,’’ Mamata said, after she received a letter from her MP counterpart Shivraj Singh Chouhan requesting her to urge the Railways to run a Shramik special train from Indore to enable the return of migrant workers from Bengal.