UP asks details of Cong’s 1K buses

A political tug of war has broken out between the BJP-led Uttar Pradesh government and the Congress over 1,000 buses provided by the opposition party’s UP unit to ferry guest workers to their homes. At least nine letters were exchanged by the two sides.

The Congress claimed that as of 5 pm on Tuesday, 500 buses were standing at the DelhiGhaziabad border and 500 more at Agra and the local authorities were not permitting them saying they have no order from the government.

The drama began on Monday when after much dilly-dallying, the Uttar Pradesh government led by Yogi Adityanath accepted a May 16 request from Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi to allow 1,000 buses to enter the state from Rajasthan to ferry guest workers in UP. It also asked her to provide a list with details of the buses, drivers and conductors for smooth transport of the migrant workers.

While state Congress leaders claimed that the buses were not being allowed to enter the state by the local authorities at the Rajasthan border, UP minister Sidharth Nath Singh accused the Congress of politicising the issue.

“On this sensitive issue of helping guest workers stranded due to Covid-19 situation, they (Congress) have proved that they don’t want to help them but want to do politics instead,” Mr Sidharth Nath said.

“Numbers of threewheelers were included in the list of buses that they claimed were deployed to ferry migrants,” he added.

Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala, however, claimed that the UP government was creating roadblocks. “The Congress has given 1,000 buses for our guest workers. But Adityanath government is playing dirty politics over it,” he said.

● CONGRESS claims that Uttar Pradesh officials are not allowing the buses organised by the party to enter the state to ferry guest workers to their native places.

● UP minister accused the Congress of giving the list of cars and threewheelers and not buses.