Yogi drags his feet over allowing 1000 buses arranged by Priyanka Gandhi to send back migrants

In a late-night drama, letters were exchanged between the senior UP Government official and office of the Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi over making available buses to ferry migrant workers from borders to their respective native places.

The Additional Chief Secretary in UP Government Awanish Awasthi wrote a letter to the office of Priyanka Gandhi at 11.40 pm on Monday asking Congress leaders to provide buses with fitness certificates at the Vrindavan grounds in Lucknow at 10 am on Tuesday--along with RC, fitness certificates of road worthiness, names of drivers and copies of their driving license.

At 2.10 am Sandeep Singh, personal secretary to Mrs Priyanka Gandhi Vadra sent a mail back to Awasthi saying “UP government’s letter seems to be politically motivated” and demanding that UP Government should no longer drag its feet but appoint nodal officers in NOIDA, Ghaziabad and Ghazipur to facilitate the buses lined up by Congress to drive the migrants back to their villages.

He also pointed out that in this critical time, bureaucratic delays and obstructive tactics were hardly desirable.

“When a huge crowd of migrant labourers are stranded at the borders, what is the justification of sending buses to Lucknow ? This is a waste of resources. It is also an inhuman act of the UP Government when migrant labourers are desperate to return home,” Singh said.

He pointed out that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had, in an interview, complained that the Congress had not furnished details of the buses. We did that and even then the process is being delayed. “The Congress is committed to send these migrant workers to their homes and will extend all help,” he said.

UP Government had initially agreed to allow 1000 buses to ferry migrant workers to their native places but later asked the Congress leadership to send details of the drivers and the conductors of these buses.

When Congress did the same, Awasthi wrote a letter at close to mid-night asking Congress to send 1000 buses to Lucknow with fitness certificate by 10 in the morning on Tuesday and hand over the buses to District Magistrate Lucknow.

The migrant issue has put the Yogi Government in a bind. He tried to come out when he asked Priyanka Gandhi if the Congress-ruled states had so many buses then why migrant workers from these states were sent in trucks. In one of the tweets, he said: “If Congress has arranged for 1000 buses why it has so far not furnished the details of the buses to the Uttar Pradesh government”.

“The majority of the Shramik Express trains are coming to UP. If Priyanka is so concerned about migrant labourers from UP why she is not asking her state governments to send these labourers through trains,” Yogi asks in his fourth and last tweet.

Congress president Ajay Kumar `Lallu’, here on Monday claimed to have handed over the list of buses they had provided on the borders to ferry the migrant workers.

“The Congress has handed over the details of the 1000 buses to the State government. We are doing our bit. Congress has provided food packets to 60 lakh people by running 22 community kitchens in the districts. We have also put up food and water stalls at the border of the state to provide help to the migrants coming from other states," he said.

BJP, however, defended Government action. Party’s state general secretary Vijay Bahadur Pathak said that all the political parties are doing `Seva’ of these migrant workers through different means. “But no one is doing politics as Congress is doing in this issue. This is unfortunate that in the event of a crisis the Congress is looking at political gains,” Pathak said.

Uttar Pradesh government has also done tremendous job following which over 15 lakh migrant workers have returned home. The government will also bring these stranded people to their homes, he said.