The Congress has again accused BJP-ruled states of raising obstacles before its efforts to pay migrant workers’ train fares, asking these governments not to prevent others from helping people they themselves won’t help.

“The BJP-ruled states are creating hurdles. Our state units are not being allowed to pay. If you can’t help, let us do that,” Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate said on Sunday.

“A civilised society can’t turn a blind eye to the greatest tragedy of our time. Migrant workers are dependent on others for even food. If they want to go home, what is the problem? Our workers are being obstructed (from paying the fares).”

The Congress has highlighted an incident that took place in Gujarat’s Valsad district on Saturday.

According to the Gujarat Congress, it had informed the Valsad collector that it was ready to pay the fares for some 2,500 migrant workers who had registered for a train journey home.

The Congress says the collector initially gave the go-ahead but subsequently refused to accept the money. Sometime later, the workers began calling party officials frantically, saying they were being asked to pay Rs 690 each and that the train would leave at 6am on Sunday.

Congress leaders desperately tried to contact the collector but he was inaccessible, the party says. Congress workers then distributed the money among the workers through the night.

Later, Congress leaders were prevented from entering the railway station before the train’s departure although a BJP lawmaker was let in.

Valsad Congress leader Gaurav Pandya alleged a “collusion” between the BJP and the district administration and warned the collector in a tweet that said: “Beware, humanity has its own ways of rerouting, rewarding and retribution.”

Congress leaders believe they are being obstructed from paying the migrants’ fares because the BJP fears this initiative by Sonia Gandhi could generate immense goodwill for her party.

“The bureaucracy is obviously working under pressure from their political masters,” Shrinate said in Delhi.

“The BJP government is not only creating hurdles, they are extracting money from them (migrant workers). The 85 per cent subsidy claim was not only a lie but laughable. The truth is that more money is being charged than the usual cost of the ticket.”

Shrinate added: “The sight of people walking hundreds of miles is so disturbing. Till the day before yesterday, 42 persons had died on the way (home).

“This unfolding humanitarian tragedy has affected everybody except the government. How can the government be so insensitive and shameless? What is the PM-Cares Fund for? What will the money be used for? It is shocking that the fund itself has been quarantined.”

Shrinate recalled that the government had sent planes to bring back NRIs stranded in foreign countries.

“How can our attitude towards the poor and the rich be so different?” she said.

Asked whether the Congress would formulate a strategy in consultation with other parties to corner the Prime Minister at Monday’s meeting with the chief ministers, she said: “We think there should not be an Opposition strategy at all; the partisan considerations should not work during such a crisis.”

She added: “There should be one united strategy. We want to support the government and ask it to deploy all its resources and energies on helping the people and reviving the economy.”