Don’t want buses? Will take them back: Priyanka to UP govt

Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said on Wednesday that the party would summon back the hundreds of buses it had sent to Utfar Pradesh’s borders

Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said on Wednesday that the party would summon back the hundreds of buses it had sent to Utfar Pradesh’s borders to carry stranded migrant workers home after a confrontation with the state government, which refused to accept the vehicles .

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“If you don’t want to use them, it doesn’t matter. We will send them back,” Priyanka Gandhi said in a message posted on social media after repeated appeals to allow the buses, parked on UP’s borders with Delhi and Rajasthan, failed to move the Yogi Adityanath government.

She said her party had arranged the buses in a humanitarian gesture to UP migrants stranded by the lockdown imposed in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“It doesn’t matter whether these are our buses or yours. We only wanted to help to serve the people,” the Congress general secretary said in the 10-minute message

Uttar Pradesh deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma said earlier Wednesday that a list of buses sent to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state government by the Congress was fake and alleged that many were unfit for use as public transport.

“How can we take theses private buses mentioned in the Congress list? It’s fake, 460 on the list do not have requisite fitness. How can we deploy them? The state government cannot play with the lives of migrant labourers by using unfit buses. The state government is duty-bound to ensure a safe journey to the migrant workers,” Sharma said.

The Congress claimed that 900 buses the party had dispatched to UP’s borders with Delhi and Rajasthan had been stranded there for 24 hours.

“I want to request the chief minister -- our buses are there on the borders till 4pm. Do permit us to run these buses to help the migrants,” Priyanka Gandhi said. “We will complete 24 hours at 4pm. Use them, if you want to. If you want to put on BJP flags or BJP stickers on them, do so. If you want to claim these are your buses, do so. But allow these buses to run,” she said.

She said the time wasted in pointing the alleged flaws in the Congress list could have been used in transporting migrant workers instead.

“I want to say that on May 16-17, we made 500 buses available on the Ghaziabad borders. If these buses had been allowed to run, about 20,000 persons could have reached their homes. On Tuesday, we provided 900 buses. These included about 500 buses on the UP-Rajasthan borders and more than 300 buses remained present on the Delhi-Ghaziabad borders. About 36,000 migrant workers would have reached their home on Tuesday if these buses had been allowed to run. Another 36,000 would have reached their home safe on Wednesday. By now, 92,000 migrant labourers would have been transported,” she said.

“I want to tell our migrant brothers and sisters that each and every worker and leader of the Congress is with you. You will find our workers in every district on the way to provide food and water or look into other problems of yours. We will continue to help you with all our capability in this hour of crisis,” she added.

The Congress made the offer of providing the buses at its expense on Saturday after many migrant workers were killed in road accidents; the offer was accepted on Monday. On Tuesday evening, the state government said only 879 of the 1,000 vehicles were buses, and the rest three-wheelers and other vehicles.

Deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma said the Congress party’s move was a stunt aimed at deriving some political mileage.

“There are no buses of the Congress party. These buses belong to the Rajasthan government. Doing politics in times of such an intense crisis was never ever done by a major political party,” he said in Lucknow.

“Can any political party use the buses of the Rajasthan State Roadways Transport Corporation for its own? On what basis are these buses being run?” he asked.

Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi alleged the state government was obstructing efforts to help migrant workers.

“One is astounded, one cannot understand - if it were not tragic for humanity, it would be comic. How is it that you will not allow to ferry the migrant workers of UP and Bihar? This is the cheapest form of politics. Will the Uttar Pradesh government stand up and explain to the nation,” he told reporters via a video conference.