Sonia Gandhi's call to pick up migrants' travel bill kicks off row

A quick-footed Congress on Monday seized the issue of stranded migrant workers being made to pay for their travel back home with party chief Sonia Gandhi directing state units to foot the bill for the journey.

An early Monday morning statement by Gandhi caught the BJP unawares and the ruling party was seen scrambling for answers by trying to rubbish her claims and accusing her of promoting indiscriminate movement of people that could lead to faster spread of infection “like we saw in Italy”, an apparent reference to the Congress President’s Italian origin.

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Amid reports of stranded migrant workers being made to pay for their travel on board ‘Shramik Special’ trains, Gandhi slammed the Modi government of spending Rs 100 crore on just one public programme in Gujarat, an apparent reference to ‘Namaste Trump’ event, accepting Rs 151 crore from Railways for PM-CARES fund and ferrying Indian stranded in foreign countries free of cost.

“...why can’t these essential members of our nation’s fabric be given a fraction of the same courtesy, especially free rail travel, at this hour of acute distress,” the Congress president and directed party’s state units to pick up the tab for the rail travel of “every needy worker and migrant labourer”.

Soon after Gandhi’s statement, Congress leaders K C Venugopal and Randeep Singh Surjewala addressed a press conference flashing the May 2 Railway Ministry order asking the state government to collect the ticket fare from the passengers and hand it over to the Railways.

A large section of the migrant workers hail from states such as Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh. The spring the Congress’ step, which was not visible earlier, appeared keeping an eye on the elections in Bihar scheduled later this year. Congress has been out of power in the state for decades and is keen on making its presence felt in the politically crucial state.

The Congress President described migrant workers and labourers as “as ambassadors of the nation’s growth” and said that the bid to help them reach homes was the party’s “humble contribution in service of our compatriots and to stand shoulder to shoulder in solidarity with them.”

A government spokesman said that the Centre had granted permission to run special trains at the request of the state government.

“We are dividing the cost in 85-15% (Railway-States) as per the norms. We never asked states to charge money from the stranded labourers,” Health Ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal told reporters at the daily Covid-19 briefing.

BJP leader B L Santosh claimed that the governments of Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Kerala had made the migrant labourers pay Rs 1,000 for the journey.

“Congress, which runs the first, partner in second, promoter of third wakes up early in the morning & issues a statement telling Party will pay for it,” Santosh said.

“Railways already subsidises 57% of passenger fare. 1/3rd passengers & empty train on return journey adds another 28%. This 85% is borne by railways. It’s asking another 15% from states of origin not migrant labourers,” said Santosh.