UP Govt Takes Up Priyanka Vadra’s Offer To Supply 1,000 Buses For Migrants, Seeks Details Of Vehicles Immediately

Uttar Pradesh (UP) government on Monday (18 May) accepted Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s offer to help the state by running 1,000 buses from her side for migrant workers.

Vadra on Saturday, writing to Chief Minister (CM) Yogi Adityanath after the death of 24 migrant workers in Auraiya accident, had proposed to deploy 1,000 buses from state borders in Noida and Ghaziabad to help migrant workers.

UP Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Awanish Awasthi, in a responding letter to Gandhi’s private secretary today, said the state administration had accepted her proposal.

He also asked the Congress leader to make available the list of all buses along with contact details of drivers and conductors without delay.

“Please, provide the list of 1,000 buses along with names and other details of drivers and conductors without any further delay so that they can be deployed to help the migrant labourers,” the letter read.

The Congress general secretary had earlier accused chief minister Yogi Adityanath of indulging in politics by not allowing Congress to provide busses, claiming that the buses were lined up at the state border.

Releasing a video message on Sunday, she requested the chief minister to allow buses to ferry migrant workers who were desperate to reach their respective homes.

However, after the government’s nod to operate the buses, Vadra again took to Twitter to thank the UP CM. She said, “Thank you for letting us run 1,000 buses on Congress party’s expenses to help thousands of our brothers and sisters on foot.”

After Vadra’s proposal, Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati said that the Congress should send its buses to Punjab and Chandigarh to fetch the stranded migrant workers. She packed her attack on Congress and BJP in her posts on Twitter.

The former UP chief minister also said that the migrant workers were suffering in BJP-ruled states. She advised Congress to send their buses to Punjab and Chandigarh, instead of UP, to fetch migrant workers who were putting their lives at risk by travelling across the Yamuna river.

The issue of migrant workers returning homes on foot has been a topic of political blame game for major parties.

Congress and other opposition parties have launched attacks on the central government and accused it of mishandling and not taking the issue seriously. The BJP has accused the Congress and other political parties of letting migrants walk from the states they rule despite the availability of trains.

Several migrant workers, who began their journeys on foot due to Coronavirus-triggered lockdown, have lost lives in accidents.

Apart from the incident in UP’s Auraiya district, 16 migrants died last month after being run over by a goods train when they were asleep on rail tracks in Maharashtra’s Aurangabad.