Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Monday questioned the government for asking hundreds of thousands of migrant workers to pay their way home after being stranded across the country following the Covid-19 lockdown.
Priyanka Gandhi’s tweets came hours after Sonia Gandhi, the Congress president and her mother, announced the party will pay for the train tickets of all such migrant workers and labourers who are taking special trains run by the Indian Railways.
Sonia Gandhi, in a statement, had also criticised the government for not planning ahead before announcing the lockdown, which has now been extended up to May 17.
“Workers are nation builders. But today they are struggling to make ends meet – this is a cause of agony for the entire country,” Priyanka Gandhi tweeted in Hindi.
She also repeated the Congress president’s points to criticise the government—the Namaste Trump event in Ahmedabad in February and free air travel for Indians stranded abroad—as she posted on Twitter.
“When we can bring back Indians stranded abroad in aeroplanes free of cost, when Namaste Trump can spend 100 crore from the government treasury in the program… ” she said.
..जब रेल मंत्री पीएम केयर फंड में 151 करोड़ रु दे सकते हैं तो फिर मजदूरों को आपदा की इस घड़ी में निशुल्क रेल यात्रा की सुविधा क्यों नहीं दे सकते?
भारतीय राष्ट्रीय कांग्रेस ने निर्णय लिया है कि घर लौटने वाले मजदूरों की रेल यात्रा का पूरा खर्च उठाएगी।
2/2
— Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (@priyankagandhi) May 4, 2020
Priyanka Gandhi’s jibes were also aimed at Piyush Goyal, the railways minister.
“When the railway minister can give Rs 151 crore to the PM-CARES Fund, then why can’t the workers get the facility of free rail travel in this hour of disaster?” she asked.
“The Indian National Congress has decided that it will bear the full expenses of the rail journey of the workers returning home,” she added.
Former Congress president and her brother Rahul Gandhi has also attacked the Centre for charging migrants for train tickets.
