Indian Prime Minister 6 hours short notice of sudden lock down announcement during march 2020 has witnessed commotion across India where more than millions migrated across states of india and more than 1200 migrant workers lost their lives while walking more than 1500 kms back to their homes.
Opposition parties and medias carried exclusive stories the plight of migrant workers . Supreme Courts been bombarded with PILs on the plight of migrant workers
BJP ruled union government Prime Minister Narendra Modi remained silent all along ..
After remaining silent over this issue for almost two years this was the first time that the PM blamed political rivals for the migrant workers’ crisis, one of the defining tragedies of the pandemic in India.
Breaking the silence for the first time at Parliament on Monday squarely blamed the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for the mass exodus of migrant workers from the cities during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, which caused human tragedies and led to questions over a hurriedly called federal lockdown.
The PM claimed that in UP, Uttarakhand and Punjab Covid was not spreading fast before that but as a result of “this sin” of the Congress and the AAP, the disease “gripped these states”.
All the three states are going to the polls this month. The remarks invoked sharp reactions from opposition parties.
While the PM has earlier repeatedly appealed to keep politics out of the handling of the pandemic, on Monday he lashed out at the Congress and said,
“Was it proper to bring party politics into Covid too, which is a global pandemic? But I have to say that the Congress crossed all limits even during the pandemic.”
In his reply to the debate on the President’s speech, the PM said, “During the first wave, when the country was in lockdown at that time the W.H.O. and all health experts advised people across the world to stay wherever they are. For, an affected person will take corona along with him wherever he goes. At that time, Congress workers stood at Mumbai stations and distributed free tickets and instigated migrant brothers and sisters to leave Mumbai.”
“They (the workers) were told, ‘you belong to UP and Bihar. Go back and spread Covid there’. It was done to lessen the pressure on Maharashtra. This was a wrong thing to do. You created chaos and put worker brothers and sisters in great difficulties,” the PM said amid fierce protests from the Congress led by its floor leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.
“During that time, the government in Delhi, which is still there, they put microphones in jeeps and went around the slums telling people, ‘a major crisis is about to come. Run away. Go back home’. They provided buses but dropped them midway and created many problems for workers,” the PM added.
The PM told the House that about 80% of eligible people have got the second dose of the Covid vaccine and nearly all eligible Indians have got their first dose. “What sort of politics is this when humanity is in crisis? How long this politics continue?
The Congress’s behaviour has made the whole country worried. Is this country not yours? Is the well being of people not your concern?” the PM said. Modi said many political leaders must introspect.
“How many leaders told people to take precautions, wear masks, maintain do gaz ki doori and alerted them about this global pandemic? What benefit would it have been for the BJP or Modi if you did that?” “But during such a major crisis, they failed in this pious duty,” the PM said.
Responding to Prime Minister speech Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal said Modi’s statement was “completely false”. “The country hopes that the Prime Minister will be sensitive to those who have suffered the pain of the corona period, those who have lost their loved ones. It does not behove the Prime Minister to do politics on the suffering of the people,” he said.
Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said, “Those pushing workers and their families into a whirlpool of misery due to the lockdown are questioning the ‘hands of helping’ instead of ‘apologising’. Lakhs of people have lost their loved ones due to the incompetence of the government, but today their pain was shamelessly laughed at in Parliament. This will be remembered.”
