UP govt claims Cong bus list has cars, autos, scooters

Lucknow, May 19 (IANS) The Yogi Adityanath government has now alleged that the list of buses submitted to the state government by the Congress for carrying migrant workers includes registration numbers of cars, scooters and autos.

Uttar Pradesh Minister and government spokesman Siddhartha Nath Singh told reporters that the Congress deserved condemnation for this kind of 'fraud and forgery'.

"Congress president Sonia Gandhi should respond to the actions of her children, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Rahul Gandhi. It is unforgivable that a political party should resort to this kind of petty politics in the name of migrant workers. The Congress owes an apology to the nation," he said.

The Minister further said that it was because of this that the Uttar Pradesh government had sought details of the vehicles when the Congress sought permission to provide buses to carry the migrants.

The state Congress president Ajay Kumar Lallu said that some numbers may have been wrongly written but the party is committed to provide 1,000 buses.

The Yogi Adityanath government asked the Congress to deploy 500 buses at Kaushambhi bus station in Ghaziabad and 500 buses at Gautam Buddha Nagar near Expo Mart ground by noon to ferry the migrant workers.

The letter to this effect was sent by Additional Chief Secretary, Home, Avanish Awasthi to Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's personal secretary. The letter said that directives have been sent to the concerned district magistrates who will check the vehicle fitness, driving licenses of drivers and other documents before deploying them for migrant workers.

The exchange of letters between the state government and the Congress continued till 2.a.m on Tuesday regarding permission to bring migrants on 1,000 buses being provided by the Congress.