The BJP and Congress on Saturday attacked the Aam Aadmi Party-led Delhi government over its statement to the effect that it had sponsored the train fare of 1,200 migrant workers from Muzaffarpur in Bihar after their State government allegedly refused to do so.
This was after a letter from Principal Secretary, Social Welfare Department, P.K. Gupta, who is the nodal officer for the movement of migrant workers to their home States, asking his counterpart in Bihar for the reimbursement of the fare to the Delhi government, surfaced here earlier during the day.
“Railways has stated many times that the Centre is giving 85% of the expenditure for sending labourers to their State and 15% is by the State government, but in this too, the Kejriwal government is engaging in propaganda,” Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari alleged “On one hand, the Delhi government writes to the Bihar government, demanding money spent on the train fare of labourers and on the other, the it is saying that it’s paying the fare,” he said.
Delhi Congress chief Ch. Anil Kumar said that it was “shocking” that the Delhi government, which “takes false credit” for paying the train fare of migrant labourers, had demanded reimbursement from the receiving States of the migrant labour.
“There was no need to indulge in such a charade by the Delhi government as the Delhi Congress had written to Kejriwal and the Chief Secretary, expressing its readiness to pay for the train fares of the migrants,” he said.
