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‘Nation-building migrant workers are out in the sun, allow us to help them’: Priyanka Gandhi writes to UP CM

Gandhi has sought permission from Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to run 1,000 buses to send migrant workers back to their native places amid the coronavirus lockdown.

Updated on: May 17, 2020, 16:12:05 IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By
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Congress leader and party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Sunday took to Twitter and asked Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister to grant permission to help migrant labourers amid the coronavirus crisis.

AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. (ANI)
AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. (ANI)

She said that the buses are there at the border while thousands of “nation-building migrant workers” are walking in the sun. “Our buses are there at the borders... grant permission and let us help our brothers and sisters,” she said.

“Blank announcements and cheap politics will not work. Operate more trains, run more buses. We have asked for permission for 1,000 buses. Let us serve,” she posted in a tweet on Sunday.

Also read: ‘Go pick up their bags, do something,’ Sitharaman slams Cong over migrant labourers

“There are many labourers on every side of the border of UP. They are walking in the sun, today they are being kept standing for hours. They are not allowed through. They have no work for the last 50 days. Livelihood is at a standstill,” Gandhi’s tweet read.

Gandhi has sought permission from Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to run 1,000 buses to send migrant workers back to their native places amid the coronavirus lockdown.

In a letter to the chief minister, she said the party will bear expenses of their journey to their native places Uttar Pradesh.

A delegation led by Uttar Pradesh Congress president Ajay Kumar Lallu and legislature party leader Aradhana Mishra handed over the letter by Priyanka Gandhi at the chief minister’s office in Lucknow, news agency PTI reported on Saturday.

Gandhi, on Saturday, said in a tweet that there is a need to sit and talk with the migrant labourers. “These are our own people. Their suffering has to be shared,” she tweeted.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday lashed out at the Congress party and said that merely sitting with them or talking to them while they walk on the roads in the heat is not going to serve any purpose.

“Go walk with them, pick up their bags rather than sitting next to them and talking to them,” Sitharaman stated.

The finance minister said that now is not the time to indulge in politics.

“I am urging the opposition party very politely, folding my hands and requesting them here. We must all come together and help migrant labourers in this crisis,” the finance minister said on the sidelines of unveiling the final tranche of government’s economic package on Sunday.

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