UP, Raj in fresh row over migrants’ buses

JAIPUR/LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan governments sparred on Friday over a Congress attempt to arrange 1,000 buses for the transport of migrant workers walking to their homes in Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled UP after being stranded by the lockdown imposed to stop the spread of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).

Rajasthan Congress president and deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot accused the Yogi Adityanath government of engaging in petty politics.

“Taking help doesn’t diminish someone’s stature. UP government did politics and blamed Congress. We condemn it,” Pilot told journalists in Jaipur.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi had decided that the party’s state units will bear the expense of the buses, which were arranged by general secretary

Priyanka Gandhi. The buses weren’t arranged by the Rajasthan government, but by the Congress for transporting stranded migrants, Pilot said.

“The entire country watched the UP government’s attitude... They created unnecessary hurdles, arrested people and registered FIRs, which shows a narrow mindset,” Pilot said.

In Lucknow, deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma said the Rajasthan government had charged UP the full cost of arranging 90 buses for transporting students stranded in the coaching school hub of Kota. He claimed that Priyanka Gandhi’s offer of providing buses to migrant UP workers was a political stunt and her show of empathy for them was a sham.

“On the one hand you do not have the courtesy to drop our students stranded in your state at the UP border and you instead ask us to pay the cost for ferrying students, on the other hand you try to show off your sense of public service and sensitivity by offering buses for migrants in UP,” Sharma said.

He demanded an apology from the Congress “for misleading the nation.”A large number of the 1,000 buses that the Congress had offered were unfit for use or uninsured or fake, the UP government claimed.

The country watched UP govt’s attitude... They created unnecessary hurdles, arrested people and registered FIRs...

SACHIN PILOT, Rajasthan deputy chief minister