Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday warned against anyone evicting migrant workers from their lodgings, speaking hours after an MLA came to the rescue of a group of labourers thrown out by their landlord.

“It has come to my knowledge that migrant workers are being evicted from their accommodation. That won’t be allowed,” Vijayan said during his daily media briefing.

Instead, he said, all basic facilities should be provided to migrant workers, who have lost their livelihood to the coronavirus outbreak but can’t return home because of the nationwide lockdown.

“They should be provided with accommodation, food and medical care. District collectors have been instructed to take all necessary measures,” the chief minister said.

A group of 20 migrant workers, mainly from Bengal and Assam, had been evicted by their landlord in North Paravur, Ernakulam district, on Thursday afternoon for failing to pay the Rs 100-a-day-per-head rent.

But the local MLA, Congress politician V.D. Satheesan, quickly stepped in and sorted the matter out.

“Since they (the workers) had had no earnings in the last couple of weeks, they could not pay the daily rent. So I called the police and got the landlord to accommodate them,” Satheesan told The Telegraph.

“They had to spend just about an hour on the street before I went there with police and sent them back to their lodgings. I have asked the police to book the landlord in a case for his uncivil act at such a time.”

Satheesan, who has opened a community kitchen with local donations and his own resources next to the building where the workers are staying, has promised “three meals a day” to them.

“They don’t have to worry about food,” he said.

Satheesan said he was expanding the operation to provide food to more people.

“We have about 300 volunteers who came together during the 2018 floods. That experience of providing food, clothing and shelter has come in handy now,” Satheesan said.

Another group of migrant workers, from Tamil Nadu, too was evicted from a house in Kannur district on Thursday.

The collector has been told to find new accommodation for them.

Several lakh migrant workers, mostly from the eastern and northern states, are normally employed in Kerala.

Most of them are unskilled labourers but there are masons and carpenters too.