Sonia stoops to score political points

The All India Railways Federation (AIRF) wrote a letter to Congress President Sonia Gandhi on March 7, requesting her to abstain from indulging in petty politics at a time of severe crisis and distress.

The letter followed after what had transpired on May 4, when the official twitter handle of the Congress party tried to create a bugaboo in society by claiming that the migrant labourers will have to pay for the 'Shramik Special Train' service, introduced by the Indian Railways at the behest of the Central government, if they wanted to avail the facility. She even went further in politicizing a spectral problem by claiming that because, the government is charging hefty amounts to poor labourers for the noble purpose of their rehabilitation; the Congress will step up and rescue the migrant labourers by using their own party fund for their accommodation.

The problem here is that two days before the tweet was made by the official social media handle of the Congress party, the Railway Ministry had already clarified on the issue, stating that the Centre is bearing 85% of the total expenses, while the States, which had respectively written to the Centre and requested them to initiate an emergency rehabilitation procedure for their migrant labourers, will bear the remaining 15% of the cost incurred per migrant labourer. Hence, it was made perfectly clear that all labourers will be travelling free of cost.

Therefore, if a state abdicates their duty, that too after moral grandstanding, and charges their labourers for rehabilitation, then it is not the Centre's responsibility but the state's nefariousness. Moreover, a recent reportage by Times Now revealed that only three states made their migrant labourers pay for the travel and rehabilitation in the entire country - Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Kerala.

Therefore, the question now arises as to why did Sonia Gandhi try to unnecessarily politicize a sensitive and humane issue by propagating a contentious myth in society? Moreover, if she was indeed concerned about the labourers, why had she not instructed the states under her party's rule to not charge money from the poor labourers? Was making cheap political gains by peddling lies the only objective for Sonia Gandhi? And if not, then why did she try to pass the buck where it did not belong?

Gaurav Agarwal

Guwahati, Assam