Congress in limelight with UP bus initiative

NEW DELHI: The Congress seems to have stolen a march on the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) on the migrant crisis in Uttar Pradesh with its aggressive posturing against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

It is for the first time in 16 months since she formally joined politics and took up the task of reviving the grand old party’s fortunes in UP that Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has made some impact in India’s most politically important state with the polite but firm stand she took on the issue.

Gandhi insisted that the Yogi Adityanath government allow her party to ferry 1,000 buses with migrant workers from UP’s borders back to their homes across the state. She argued it was not a political but humanitarian issue.

The state government denied permission to the buses on technical grounds.The Congress claimed that the BJP had been rattled by Priyanka Gandhi’s stand and hence obstructed the attempt to help migrant workers.

“The long march home for our migrant labourers has come at huge human costs...The BJP has shown its real anti-poor face. The government’s continued apathy towards the migrant workers was visible in their initial rejection and then petty games to delay the buses...,” said UP Congress leader Gaurav Kapoor.

The BJP said the Congress was trying to mask its own failures in party-ruled states. “...Congress governments in Rajasthan, Punjab or Maharashtra have failed to convince them to stay back while no workers are leaving UP. What Congress is doing now is just hiding its failings,” UP BJP spokesperson Chandra Mohan said.

While the BJP and the Congress slugged it out in the open, the two regional parties – SP and BSP – surprisingly watched the developments from a distance.

Political observers argue that both the SP and BSP are trapped in conventional politics.

“Both these parties understand the language of caste but now a new language has reappeared in the political scene due to this pandemic, and that is the language of poor, labourers and migrant workers though it is an old one. For BSP and SP, it is dalits and other backward classes (OBCs),” political analyst Professor Badri Narayan said.

“There is a clear shift in identity. While Congress has grabbed it as an opportunity, Mayawati appears nervous and Akhilesh is not able to negotiate this issue and appears clueless,” he added.

Congress leader Kapoor said while the BSP was completely missing in action during the pandemic, the SP’s work was limited to a few social media messages. “Migrant workers can see only Congress is coming to their help in these trying times,” he said.

But the BSP said it was working silently for the deprived. “We do it quietly and silently and don’t make propaganda of it,” said BSP leader Antu Mishra.

The SP too took the same line of argument. “Our approach is more practical and pragmatic and our workers available on the ground to provide help to the migrant workers...,” SP spokesperson Abhishek Mishra said.