On Tuesday the former Congress president Rahul Gandhi attacked the government. For stating in Parliament on Monday the first day of the 18-day uninterrupted monsoon session that it did not know how many migrants workers had died during the coronavirus lockdown.
“Modi government does not know how many migrant workers died or how many people lost their jobs during the lockdown,” he tweeted.
“You didn’t count so what, nobody died? Yes, but it is unfortunate that there was no impact on the government. The world saw them dying but the Modi government remained clueless,” Gandhi added.
In May, when he encountered migrants camping out during an overflight in Delhi. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman ridiculed the decision, calling it “draamabazi”. “Instead of wasting the migrants’ time and sitting with them, walk with them and carry their suitcases. In states ruled by Congress, ask for more trains so more migrants can return home,” she said.
The Wayanad MP’s attack on the Centre came a day after the government, in a written reply by the Ministry of Labour and Employment, said it has “no such data available” on the number of migrant deaths or the job losses.
Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi left to go abroad last week for the Congress chief’s health check-up. They will not attend the first part of the monsoon session of parliament. However, Mr. Gandhi continues to attack the center in his daily tweets.
The Migrant Crisis
A nationwide lockdown was imposed on 25 March to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus. here was an exodus of a large number of migrant workers to their native places from different parts of the country during the lockdown. The lockdown restrictions were eased from late May.
मोदी सरकार नहीं जानती कि लॉकडाउन में कितने प्रवासी मज़दूर मरे और कितनी नौकरियाँ गयीं।
तुमने ना गिना तो क्या मौत ना हुई?
हाँ मगर दुख है सरकार पे असर ना हुई,
उनका मरना देखा ज़माने ने,
एक मोदी सरकार है जिसे ख़बर ना हुई।— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) September 15, 2020
The minister of state for labor and employment Santosh Kumar Gangwar in reply to a written question in the Lok Sabha has said on Mondy that the government did not have any record of the death of migrant workers during the Covid-19 pandemic.” No such data was maintained,” the minister had said in the written reply. Adding to that there was “no question of giving compensation” to the victims’ next of kin.
The ministry also said that according to the government’s centralized database, over 1.04 crore migrant workers returned to their home states. With Uttar Pradesh receiving the highest number of workers at 32.4 lakh. This was followed by Bihar at 15 lakh and Rajasthan, which recorded the return of 13 lakh migrants.
On Monday, he had attacked Modi over the coronavirus lockdown in India and the subsequent lockdown. “The unplanned lockdown is the product of one person’s ego, which has caused the coronavirus to spread across the country.”
India coronavirus tally on Tuesday rose to 49,30,236 as it reported 83,809 new cases in the last 24 hours. The toll rose by 1,054 to 80,776
