Congress, Yogi Adityanath in letter war over buses for migrants

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra appeared to have stumped Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath with an offer to ferry migrant workers to their villages onboard 1,000 buses organised by the opposition party.

A bitter letter war broke out between Priyanka and the Uttar Pradesh government, even as a convoy of 600 buses waited for “orders from Lucknow” to enter the state from adjoining Congress-ruled Rajasthan to ferry migrant workers to the safety of their homes.

The Congress to ply buses for migrants came against the backdrop of the directives from Congress President Sonia Gandhi to pay for rail fare of the migrants who were charged for travel on board the Shramik Special trains run by the Railways at the request of state governments.

The UP government and Priyanka’s office exchanged nine letters within the past three days working out the modalities of deploying the buses in Uttar Pradesh for migrant workers who have set out on foot to their village in absence of adequate transport.

Caught by surprise, the UP government hit back at the Congress accusing it of supplying a list registration numbers of auto rickshaws and motor bikes when asked to submit details of the 1,000 buses it intended to deploy in Uttar Pradesh.

UP Minister Siddharth Nath Singh said in Lucknow the Congress deserved condemnation for this kind of “fraud and forgery”.

Congress leader Rajiv Shukla admitted that some errors might have crept in while submitting details of 1,000 buses to the UP government and asked it to allow a fleet of 600 buses lined up at the Uncha Nagla along the UP-Rajasthan border near Agra.

“Yogi Adityanathji, you can put BJP banners and your own photographs on the buses, but do not reject our offer to serve the migrants as three days have already been lost in this politicking,” Priyanka said as UP Congress leaders staged a demonstration at Uncha Nagla, demanding that the buses be allowed to pass.

The UP government first asked the Congress to send the buses to Lucknow and after protests amended the order asking the opposition party to hand over the buses to district magistrates of Noida and Ghaziabad.