Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday announced “pocket money” from her government for migrant workers from Bengal stranded in other parts of the country so that they were able to eat during the lockdown after calling her Maharashtra counterpart Uddhav Thackeray to thank him for the work by his administration.

A day after over 1,000 migrant workers, stranded in Mumbai in the lockdown, gathered near the Bandra railway station, demanding to be allowed to return home, the Bengal chief minister spoke to some of them — from Bengal — and assured them of monetary assistance during the lockdown.

Mamata, however, stood by Thackeray and his government, attacking “some” — the saffron camp — for trying to politicise the incident even amid a pandemic.

“I personally spoke to the Maharashtra chief minister. I called him up. I thanked him for doing such a lot of work amid such a crisis. If there is any assistance that we could be of, we are eager. We are all in this together and will work together,” said Mamata.

She also said: “We are trying out best to ensure that our groups that remain stranded, from Mumbai, Surat, Delhi… all those we have been able to contact, we will send some pocket money to them.”

Mamata was referring to migrant workers descending on the streets of Surat in Gujarat for the second time in less than a week on Tuesday. They all wanted to go home.

Mamata said local contacts in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Delhi would be used for the payment of the “pocket money”. “They have told me, they were given rice but had no money to buy vegetables or anything else to eat it with. Sending food items from here right now is very difficult, given the lockdown,” she said.

Tens of thousands of such workers from Bengal remain stranded in 18 other states.

“Our poor government will not desert its people stranded elsewhere at such a dangerous time…. Whatever we do get to know of, we will act on.”

Her government has been taking care of over 2 lakh migrant workers from 16 states at 711 camps in Bengal.