Nitish’s offer rejected by Haryana CM

Bihar CM offers to foot the travel bill of migrants, Khattar says they are Haryanavis like others

Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar on Monday rejected the offer of his Bihar counterpart Nitish Kumar to bear the expenses of lockdown hit migrant labourers of the state. Khattar while rejecting the offer of Bihar CM to reimburse the expenses incurred by Haryana government, said all Biharis staying in his state were like any other Haryanavi.

A letter was sent to Haryana government by Bihar government last week informing that the Nitish Kumar government would bear all the expenses of the Bihari workers staying in the BJP-ruled state. Nitish had told Khattar the Bihari workers should not suffer in Haryana and the Bihar government would reimburse all expenses on them by Haryana Government. In a letter to Kumar, Khattar said the workers from Bihar have contributed in the development of Haryana. Bihari workers have contributed in economic, agricultural and industrial progress of Haryana. Like its own citizens, Haryana government would take care of all Bihari workers and bear all the expenses on them during the lockdown period too.

The largest number of migrant workers had come to Bihar from Maharashtra, Gujarat and NCR and a very few from Haryana.

In 2008, Nitish Kumar had rejected the relief sent by Gujarat government to Bihar to help during the floods in North Bihar. Kumar had returned a cheque of Rs5 crore sent by the then Gujarat CM, Narendra Modi. Migrant workers from Ahmedabad, Baroda and Surat have returned to Bihar in different Shramik special trains in the last week.

Meanwhile, a woman died of Corona at Nalanada Medical College Hospital here on Monday raising the death toll to nine. There are over 1,400 positive cases in Bihar on Monday, a jump of about 200 fresh cases on a single day. Patna has 164, Munger 133 cases on Monday.

Four Bihar Military Police jawans deployed on security duty at the ancestral house of the CM at Bakhtiarpur, 60 kms from here tested positive on Monday. They have been admitted in the hospital and his entire house was sanitised.