Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra arranged 500 buses for the migrants stranded in Uttar Pradesh on a day Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman asked the Congress not to do “dramabazi”, betraying the BJP’s jitters at the series of pro-migrant moves taken by the rival.
Priyanka got 500 empty buses lined up near Mathura on the Rajathan-Uttar Pradesh border since Sunday noon, requesting chief minister Yogi Adityanath to let the buses in to take the distressed workers home.
Late in the evening, Adityanath refused permission for the buses. He had insinuated that Priyanka was doing “politics” and told the media she should “take care of the Congress-ruled states”.
Earlier, the Congress had alleged that like several other BJP-ruled states, Uttar Pradesh was trying to stonewall its efforts to pay the migrants’ train fares home, as promised by party president Sonia Gandhi.
It said district authorities were refusing to give details of the migrants who had bought train tickets. The Congress has publicised WhatsApp numbers for every district to which the migrants can send pictures of their tickets to claim the fare.
It appears that the moves by Sonia and Priyanka — and Rahul Gandhi’s gesture of meeting with a group of migrants on a Delhi roadside on Saturday — provoked a rattled Sitharaman’s attack on Sunday afternoon.
“What is this when people sit with migrant workers and talk? The workers’ time was wasted. He (Rahul) could have held their bags and talked to them while walking. Time barbad kiya…. To borrow the expression of Congress leaders, wasn’t this dramabazi (theatrics)?” she said.
While the minister’s comment seemed to imply she supported the migrants’ decision to walk home to Madhya Pradesh, Rahul had persuaded them to wait till the Congress arranged transport.
Sitharaman also targeted Sonia, saying: “I urge Sonia Gandhi with folded hands: we have to deal with this migrant issue collectively. Speak responsibly, deal with it responsibly.”
Priyanka had earlier written to Adityanath on Saturday, seeking permission for 1,000 buses to be deployed for the workers who were stranded in Uttar Pradesh or were walking hundreds of miles to their homes.
Without waiting for approval, she asked Congress workers to make arrangements. By noon on Sunday, 500 buses from Alwar and Bharatpur in Congress-ruled Rajasthan had reached the Uttar Pradesh border at Govardhan near Mathura.
Several Congress leaders from Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh were waiting at the border with these buses. Uttar Pradesh Congress president Ajay Kumar Lallu said the idea was to pick up migrants from various places in Uttar Pradesh and ferry them home, whether in the same state or elsewhere, such as Bihar.
Priyanka issued a video appeal to Adityanath in the afternoon, saying: “This is not the time for politics. I am pleading with you. Our buses are waiting at the border. Thousands of workers are walking in extreme distress without food or water. Allow us to help them. Give permission for the buses to enter Uttar Pradesh.”
But in the afternoon, Adityanath told a TV interviewer: “Priyanka should take care of the Congress-ruled states…. Those doing politics on this issue should think why people rejected them in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections.”
Priyanka had asked party workers not to use any Congress poster or flag on the buses.