Ubaidullah Nasir
Beware your offer of cooperation and help may land you in trouble, you want to douse a bucket of water on the burning house but no first prove the water is genuine not of substandard let the house in the meantime burn fully. This is the attitude of Yogi government of Uttar Pradesh on the offer of Congress general secretary Ms. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra offering 1000 buses to ferry the hapless migrant labours facing every imaginable hardship including heat wave hunger thirst police brutalities and a sense of helplessness in their own country among their own people but an insensitive inhumane political regime.
This all started with Priyanka Gandhi Vadra offering 1000 buses to UP government to be deployed to transport thousands of hapless labours collected at Delhi UP border. On 16th May a letter was sent by Mr. Sandeep Singh her personal secretary requesting UP government to allow these buses to transport these labourers. This letter was personally delivered to CM Yogi Adityanath office by state president Ajay Kumar Lallu legislature party leader Mona Mishra senior leader Nasimuddin Siddiqi RK Chaudhry and Shyam Kishsore Shukla . It was naturally expected that the offer will be immediately accepted with thanks and plying of buses will immediately start. If this would have been done more than 50,000 migrant labours would have been dropped at their destination within 24 hrs. But this offer of cooperation and help was not responded for two days which in itself proves how unserious the UP government is in the matter of these children of lesser god. On 18th additional chief secretary to UP government Mr. Avinash Awasthi through his letter informed Priyanka’s office that her offer has been accepted and detail of buses names of drivers and conductors etc. should be sent to his office immediately so that the buses are utilized. Here the natural question arises why the two days were wasted in accepting the offer and why the details of buses etc. was demanded. Do buses engaged by political parties including BJP for their rallies are put to same scrutiny? However, Priyanka’s office responded positively and detail of buses including their registration number names of drivers etc. was provided to UP government. Perhaps this promptness was unexpected to UP government which shot another letter to her office on 18th itself asking to provide all buses together with their fitness certificate, license of drivers and details of conductors by 10 am to DM Lucknow.Is not this surprising and ridiculous that buses stationed at Delhi UP border are asked to be handed over to Lucknow DM who will first verify the documents and then these buses will be re sent to UP Delhi border just waste of time and energy/fuel even in this period of emergency. It was not the end after few hours when the BJP realized that it may be a political benefit to Congress its fertile minds came into action the list of buses was checked and matched and found some discrepencies, a mountain was created out of molehill it was alleged that the list includes some numbers of auto rickshaws ambulances and school buses the number of such vehicles was about 129 means 879 buses were genuine and could have been used to ferry the migrant labours. But no BJP national spokesmen UP Ministers and lakhs of hidden workers of its IT cell came into action and trolling started, media too started debate as if sky has fallen. Congress has offered help of 1000 buses and not given any tender to provide bus in return of some benefit from UP government which is being mad an issue.
In the meanwhile buses from Rajasthan reached Agra but were not allowed to move further. State congress president Ajay Kumar Lallu AICC secretary incharge UP Zubair Khan and thousands of congress workers have gathered there they tried their best to convince the Agra administration to allow the buses to go further but it was not allowed compelling Congress leaders and workers to sit on dharna at the same place later they were arrested. In the meantime an FIR was lodged by RTO Lucknow with Hazrat ganj Police against state Congress President Ajay Kumar Lallu PS to Priyanka Gandhi Vadra Mr. Sandeep Singh under section 420 and other sub sections. The FIR in itself is ridiculous as the offer of 1000 buses was as cooperation and good will gesture not any contract against some financial benefit so section 420 is not applicable if probe honestly the case will not even reach court and police itself will file final report but under Yogi administration anything is possible even they may be arrested under NSA or disaster act. According to information just received a case has also been registered against these leaders in Ghaziabad for illegally stationing the buses there.
In this political melly according to UP governments own admission about 900 buses are fit to be used, why these buses are not used why hapless migrant workers are being sandwiched UP government has no answer of this natural question. Congress in the meanwhile has announced that its buses will remain at Delhi UP border to day also (20th May) up to 4 pm with the hope that they are allowed to ferry the labours after that they will be returned to their owners. In this shameful political upmanship, chances of about 50,000 stranded hapless migrant workers to reach their homes safely have sinked. shame on this inhuman insensitive cruel politics.