‘Let Congress keep the money’: Kerala CM refuses party aid for migrants’ train fares
Congress and CPM leaders locked horns overs the issue of payment of train fare for migrant workers.
The Kerala government on Tuesday turned down the Congress party’s offer to bear the train fare of migrant workers triggering a war of words with the opposition parties, while the migrants cried foul over the lost offer to cover their travel expense.
In Alappuzha, the district Congress committee’s Rs 10 lakh cheque was refused by district collector M Anjana, who cited absence of any legal provision for accepting such assistance. The offer was made before a train with 1,140 migrant workers left the state for Bihar.
“We were told each worker paid Rs 930 for the ticket, at least Rs 200 more than the normal rate. We approached the collector with a cheque of Rs 10 lakh but she said there is no provision to accept it. It is unfair. These people are without work for more than a month. How can the state and railways fleece them like this?” Alappuzha DCC president M Liju fumed.
Similarly, in Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram cheques were turned down by district collectors. Meanwhile, three trains left Kerala carrying workers on Tuesday.
“It is time for Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to shed his arrogance. They were without jobs for more than a month and most of them really struggled to cough up money for the tickets,” said AICC general secretary K C Venugopal, decrying the government move. Later Congress workers carried out protests in Alappuzha and Kochi.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan later played down the whole issue saying it was an arrangement made by the railways and the state has no role in it. “We know the Congress has enough money. Let it keep the money. If they have some complaint they can talk to the railways,” he said.
The migrant labourers, meanwhile, said that it was cruel on part of the Kerala government to reject the offer made by the Congress. “It is a pity that the government blocked the move to fund our tickets. Some of us literally begged to meet the ticket fare,” said one labourer, who added that it was “wrong to do politics over humanitarian issues”. But the ruling CPI(M) said it was the Congress that was playing “cheap politics”.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi had on Monday attacked the union government for charging train fare from migrant labourers and announced that her party will bear the cost of travel of all stranded workers due to the coronavirus lockdown.