Cong offer on buses for migrants sparks UP tussle
PRIYANKA GANDHI VADRA’S PRIVATE SECRETARY, SANDIP SINGH, AND UP CONG CHIEF AJAY KUMAR LALLU BOOKED FOR PROVIDING ‘MISLEADING’ INFO ABOUT THE BUSES
The Uttar Pradesh government and Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s office continued to exchange letter (over e-mail) and charges related to the latter’s plan to send 1000 buses to help transport migrants in Uttar Pradesh.
The offer was made on Saturday, and accepted on Monday. But by Tuesday evening, the state government said only 879 of the 1,000 vehicles were buses, and the rest three-wheelers and other vehicles, triggering angry reactions from the Congress.
Late in the evening, police booked Gandhi’s private secretary Sandip Singh and state Congress chief Ajay Kumar ‘Lallu’ for allegedly providing ‘misleading’ information about the buses. On Monday, the UP government asked for details of the buses. Gandhi’s office did this by around 8pm on Monday.
In response to the list, additional chief secretary, home, Awanish Kumar Awasthi wrote back, at 11.30 pm on Monday night, asked that the buses be provided in Lucknow at 10am on Tuesday. Sandip Singh wrote at 2.10 am on Tuesday: “A large number of migrant labourers are stuck on the Delhi-up border and a large crowd is seen at registration centres. Under such circumstances, sending 1,000 empty buses to Lucknow is not only a waste of time and resources, it is also inhuman and a creation of anti-poor mindset….”
In response, the state asked the party to provide the buses to the district magistrates of Noida and Ghaziabad by 12 noon on Tuesday. “Please refer to your letter dated May 18, 2020. As per your letter, you have shown your inability to provide buses at Lucknow and want to provide buses at the Noida and Ghaziabad borders…. Under such a situation, please provide 500 buses to the district magistrate, Ghaziabad, at Kaushambi and Sahibabad bus stops by 12pm. In addition, provide 500 buses to the district magistrate, Gautam Buddha Nagar, at Expomart,” said Awasthi in his letter sent to Singh on Tuesday.
Singh responsed at 12.15 pm: “Some of our buses are coming from Rajasthan while some are coming from Delhi. The process of reissuing them permits is underway. As the number of buses is high, it may take some hours. As asked by you, we will make efforts to take them to the Ghaziabad/noida border by 5pm.” He requested the state government to keep the list of passengers and route map ready by 5pm to avoid any problem in their operation, saying, “This will be a historic step when the UP government and the Congress party will keep away their political reservations.” Meanwhile, at 12pm, the Uttar Pradesh government on
Tuesday said that the list of 1,000 buses submitted to it for transporting migrant workers included some numbers that were of auto rickshaws. UP government spokesman and minister for MSMES Sidharth Nath Singh accused the Congress of providing a fake list to the state. Singh said preliminary inquiry into the Congress list showed that the list carried registration numbers of threewheelers. “This is a threewheeler number… This is the number of a goods career. This is unfortunate. We condemn it.
The Congress denied this and said its buses were stranded on the Up-rajasthan border at Uncha Nagla in Bharatpur and requested permission to move ahead and ensure compliance with the government’s directives of providing the buses to the district magistrates of Noida (Gautam Buddha Nagar) and Ghaziabad at the earliest.
“We are standing at UP border at Uncha Nagla with the buses for past three hours. The Agra administration is not allowing us to enter. This is the time to show sensitivity. We request you again to grant permission to allow entry of all our buses immediately so that we can move forward,” Singh said in a letter to Awasthi at 3.45pm on Tuesday.
An official spokesman of the state said out of the list of 1049 vehicles provided by the Congress, 879 were found to be buses while 31 were three-wheelers and 69 registration numbers were of some other vehicles.
This enraged the Congress. “In its own statement, the state government has admitted 879 buses in the list have been found alright. Administration (Agra) has stopped our 500 buses for hours while 300 buses are reaching the Delhi border. Allow 879 buses to run,” said Gandhi in a tweet in the evening.
“UP government has crossed all the limits. When there is an opportunity to do away with political differences and serve helpless migrant labourers it has caused all the hindrances. @myogiadityanath ji you can use BJP flags and your posters on these buses, but don’t reject our feelings of service,” she said.