Congress demands more trains for Bengal migrant labourers

Kolkata, 7 May(HS): Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Congress leader in the Lok Sabha today strongly criticised Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, for allegedly not becoming proactive and sincere to bring back thousands more stranded migrant workers of Bengal in other states by train to end their miseries.

‘Railway Minister Piyush Goyal informed me that unlike the Chief Ministers of several other states, Mamata Banerjee did not talk to him regarding the requirement of West Bengal government about how many trains and from where to bring back its stranded workers’, Chowdhury alleged here today after his telephonic conversation with the Railway Minister.

Blaming the Chief Minister and senior officers of her government, for the present situation when thousands of such hapless labourers from this state still did not know whether they would be able to return to home, as promised by the state government, the senior  Congress leader once again quoting the Railway minister said as per the requisition of state government, the Railway Ministry had arranged two special trains free of cost to bring back only a few thousand migrant labourers, students and some pilgrims from Ajmer Sharif in Rajasthan and Thiruvantpuram in Kerala during the past few days.

Since there was no further request from the West Bengal government to arrange more such trains from other cities too as several other states did,  no arrangement could be made in this regard, Chowdhury further alleged quoting his telephonic conversation with the Railway Minister.

Though in public the Chief Minister and her officials had been claiming that they were very sincere in their efforts to bring back each of around 200,000 stranded migrant workers from all states, in fact, they had been doing nothing to keep up with their promises,  the Congress leader, also known as a staunch opponent of the Chief Minister, said and demanded resumption of immediate talks between the West Bengal government and the Railway Ministry in this regard to help end the miseries of these large number of daily workers and others.

So far about 4,000 migrant workers from Rajasthan and Kerala arrived in the state by two special trains and reached homes after undergoing all preliminary medical screening and promising to remain in two-week-long home Quarantine after reaching at the terminal Dankuni and Howrah stations during the last two days.