'Bihar workers are our workers,' Stalin tells Nitish

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Saturday reassured his Bihar counterpart Nitish Kumar that all migrant workers are safe in the State and he asserted that swift action would be taken against rumour-mongers spreading panic.

Stalin said he spoke to Nitish Kumar over phone and assured him that no harm would befall workers and conveyed to him that "all workers are our workers who help Tamil Nadu's growth and nothing will happen to impact them, I have assured him."

Addressing Kumar as his 'revered brother,' the Chief Minister said in an official release here that workers from northern States need not have any kind of apprehensions over working in Tamil Nadu.

In the unlikely event of somebody intimidating them, they may immediately inform police who would take immediate action.

The Chief Minister's reassurance comes against the background of false claims in social media platforms that migrant workers, especially 'Bihari labourers' in Tamil Nadu were attacked.

Stalin said: "Those spreading rumours that workers from other States are being attacked in Tamil Nadu are against the Indian nation, they infringe the national integrity. Some doing cheap politics over a non-issue is condemnable."

He asserted that stern legal action would be taken against those spreading panic through rumours. Some incidents that happened outside of Tamil Nadu were spread by falsely claiming that such incidents took place in TN, he said.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had asked officials on March 2 to look into reports of attacks on migrant workers in Tamil Nadu and his deputy Tejashwi Yadav faced criticism from the opposition BJP for visiting TN.

The Saffron party's Bihar unit chief Sanjay Jaiswal had claimed that Biharis were 'killed' in Tamil Nadu.