The Congress on Saturday released a video of an interaction between former party chief Rahul Gandhi and a group of migrant workers walking back to a village in Uttar Pradesh from Haryana amid the nationwide Covid-19 lockdown.
In his introduction to the video, Rahul said Covid-19 has hit a lot of people but the worst affected are migrant workers walking thousands of kilometres back to their homes, without food and water and despite being beaten up and threatened.
“But they did not stop and continued to walk back to their homes. I want to give you a glimpse of their thinking, fears, dreams, aspirations and their future,” he said.
The migrant crisis has triggered a political slugfest between the opposition Congress and the ruling BJP, with both sides accusing each other of playing politics on the issue.
The former party chief also demanded that the government should immediately ensure a direct cash transfer of Rs 7,500 to each of 13 crore families.
The Congress said Rahul has been extremely active on social media for many years now, becoming one of the 10 most followed politicians in the world on Twitter with 14.2 million followers.
Over the past few weeks, he has been regularly releasing longer format videos of his conversations with noted experts, such as former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan and Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee.
In the pipeline are a number of new video formats and innovative communication approaches that he will use to take his message to the widest possible audience in India and abroad, the party said.
The video interaction released took place on May 16 near Sukhdev Vihar flyover in New Delhi. The migrant workers were on their way from Ambala in Haryana to Uttar Pradesh’s Jhansi, a distance of about 600 km.
Rahul met them when they stopped to rest after walking more than 100 km.
In the 17-minute video, the Gandhi scion is seen sitting on a footpath with the migrants and interacting with them.
For almost an hour, he listened to their story and hardships, the discrimination they faced, their reasons for deciding to flee their workplace, and why they were forced to walk back to their homes, their fears, dreams and aspirations, the Congress said.
At the request of the group, Rahul and Congress volunteers organised transport and necessary permissions to get them back safely to their village, the party said. On arrival, they were screened by local health authorities and put into 21-day home quarantine.
Soon after the interaction on May 16, the party alleged that Delhi Police had detained the workers.
In a shot in the video, Mahesh Kumar, a migrant worker of Jhansi, tells Rahul he and the other workers had been walking 120 km and stopping at regular intervals. “We are helpless. What can we do? We have to walk,” he says.
Another construction worker and his family tells him they would have left for their homes had information about the lockdown been provided four days before it was imposed.
The workers remained non-committal about returning to their workplaces, insisting it is important to save their lives.
They claimed they had not received any monetary help from the government.
The migrants said more than the Coronavirus, hunger is hurting them and that is why they were not afraid of getting killed on the roads.
Rahul concluded the video with a message to migrant workers: “My brother and sisters, you are the strength of this country, you carry the weight of this country on your shoulders. The entire country wants there should be justice (nyay) with you. It is our duty to empower this strength of the country.”
Rahul was out to spread ‘political pollution’: BJP
The BJP on Saturday hit out at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over his video on his interaction with the migrant labourers saying he was out to spread “political pollution”. The party also lashed out at the opposition for playing “negative politics” even at the time of global pandemic
Senior BJP leader and Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said that Rahul is spreading political pollution instead of offering any solution to the problems. “This is a time of unprecedented crisis with Coronavirus, Amphan Cyclone and Visakhapatanam gas tragedy all happening at once and the Congress must help the government,” he said.
For his part, another senior BJP leader and Union Minister Prakash Javadekar alleged that the Congress and other parties were engaged in an exercise of hypocrisy and making contradictory comments on the strategy to be adopted to battle out Coronavirus pandemic.
Javadekar said, at a time when the entire country should unitedly fight against this pandemic, the Opposition is continuously playing negative politics and their meeting called by Congress reflects it. He alleged that the Congress and other Opposition parties are commenting on 20 lakh crore rupees package without understanding its benefits. He said Modi-government has organised a single ration card which can be used anywhere in the country and also arranged for “free grain” for those who have no ration card.
The BJP leader said congress and other opposition were initially asking why lockdown was not being extended by now same parties were questioning its extension by the government. Similarly, he said at first opposition said why government was not allowing stranded migrants to travel to their native places but now since 50 lakh of them have reached their places, same parties were playing by “organising few buses”.
He said on the one hand opposition parties talking loud about cooperative federalism on the other the same Congress and other Opposition-ruled states are not giving permission to run as many trains needed for migrant workers.
Maya calls Rahul video a drama
In a series of tweets, BSP supremo Mayawati attacked Rahul Gandhi saying his video looks less like an act of sympathy and more like drama. She also said that had Congress given jobs to labourers in the last 70 years, this situation wouldn't have risen. She slammed BJP too for "walking in the footsteps of Congress".