Union Home Minister Amit Shah wrote to Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over migrants’ trains
New Delhi:
The centre is just not receiving anticipated assist from the Bengal authorities over return of stranded migrants, Union Home Minister Amit Shah mentioned in a letter to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee right now.
In his letter the Home Minister accused the Bengal authorities of not permitting “shramik (employee)” trains run by the Railways to achieve the state and declared this to be an “injustice” for Bengali migrants stranded throughout the nation.
Mr Shah identified that the centre had, to this point, helped over two lakh migrants return residence amid the coronavirus lockdown and warned the Bengal authorities that non-cooperation would create hardship for its migrants.
“… we are not getting expected support from West Bengal. The state government is not allowing trains to reach. This is injustice for West Bengal migrant labourers. This will create further hardship for them,” Mr Shah wrote.
The centre and the Bengal authorities have clashed repeatedly amid the coronavirus outbreak within the nation, with an IMCT (inter-ministerial central staff), which visited the state to overview its dealing with of the disaster, this week accusing Ms Banerjee’s administration of taking an “antagonistic view”.
In a separate letter from the Home Ministry, written on Thursday, Bengal was advised it had a “very low rate of testing in proportion to the population” and a “very high rate of mortality of 13.2 per cent, by far the best for any state”.
Bengal has reported 1,678 coronavirus circumstances and 160 deaths to this point, whereas the variety of circumstances throughout the nation is nearing 60,000 with 1,981 dead.
Responding to the fees, Trinamool Congress MP Shantanu Sen mentioned: “This is most unfortunate. A Union secretary has written a letter full of lies…” and accused the centre of “playing the communal card”. He additionally attacked the centre over failing to offer the state with satisfactory assets.
Bengal can be considered one of three states – the opposite two being Uttar Pradesh and Odisha – identified as potential coronavirus hotspots given the variety of migrants being ferried residence throughout the nation.
In a digital assembly with Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Thursday, the aforementioned states had been requested to extend testing and surveillance.
Last week, reportedly fearing a political backlash over the migrants’ disaster, the centre permitted journey of stranded folks, offering they displayed no COVID-19 signs and underwent a compulsory quarantine interval on arrival.
The first “special” train to Bengal set off from Rajasthan’s Ajmer this week – certain for Durgapur by way of Asansol – carrying 1,200 migrant employees. Shortly after Ms Banerjee tweeted that a second would carry again the same variety of folks stranded in Kerala.
Overall, throughout the nation lakhs of migrants, college students and others had been left stranded by a nationwide lockdown in March that was enforced with only some hours’ discover.
Stuck with out jobs, cash, meals or shelter, they’d no choice however to stroll tons of, typically 1000’s, of kilometres, triggering a humanitarian disaster.
