JOIN USLocking down migrant workers without financial assistance is criminal: Yechury
The CPI(M) on Monday found fault with Narendra Modi government's strategy on dealing with migrant workers during COVID-19 lockdown, saying the latest instruction to ensure that they do not move out of cities without corresponding financial assistance is "criminal".
Emphasising that the state governments should have been taken public into confidence on the implementation of the lockdown from the "very start", CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury said the "unilateral" announcement for 21-day lockdown with "no preparation whatsoever" has led to this "dangerous anarchy that exponentially increases" dangers of community transmission of COVID-19.
"Now to direct the states' to ensure that migrant workers don’t move without a corresponding financial assistance is criminal. Modi cannot pass the buck. He and the Centre must take responsibility," Yechury tweeted.
Referring to the Ministry of Home Affairs' (MHA) directive to states to ensure that salaries should be paid at the workplace, he asked what does it mean during a lockdown and demanded that it should be credited to their accounts or delivered at home.
"Treating this medical emergency as distinct from the economic one, not planning has meant millions trapped by government’s follies. More have died from the exhaustion of walking and hunger than COVID-19. Modi government must immediately put in place remedial measures and be accountable to the people," he said.
Commenting on the Prime Minister sharing videos of yoga, he said those migrant workers who are walking miles on the roads, braving hunger and state apathy, do not need fitness videos but immediate and urgent help from the Centre, which is its constitutional responsibility. "What we see instead is PR. This is unacceptable," he said.
He also referred to the incident in Uttar Pradesh where disinfectant was sprayed on migrant labourers returning to the state, he said, "this is absolutely shameful. The poor and the vulnerable are being robbed off their basic human dignity, after Modi's unplanned lockdown decision has caused a humanitarian crisis, adding to the medical one."