The Uttar Pradesh government had refused to intake around 400 labours belongs to their state itself, sent by the state Madhya Pradesh, a week ago. For inexplicable reasons, the Yogi Adityanath government has closed its borders to migrant workers from Uttar Pradesh trying to enter their home state from Madhya Pradesh.
Though Yogi was the first chief minister in the country to send a fleet of buses to Kota in Rajasthan to fetch students from the state stranded there, his government is not showing the same sensitivity towards the migrant workers, who, decidedly are much worse off than the students.
The Uttar Pradesh government has, so far, closed its borders on the face of thousands of migrant workers trying to reach their homes in the state by crossing over from Madhya Pradesh.
In the latest incident, eight buses carrying around 400 migrant workers were turned back from the Jhansi border by the UP government. The buses were arranged by the Madhya Pradesh government and had left Bhopal on April 29 and 30. Five buses (MP 04 A 1724, 6669, 3222, 2713 and 2787) were dispatched on April 29 while three (MP 04 A 2902, 2656 and 2411) had started on April 30.
The buses reached the Jhansi border via Tikamgarh. However, the officials posted at the border did not allow the buses to enter the state. Permission to drop the labourers at the border was also refused. After waiting for more than six hours during which Madhya Pradesh officials tried to reason with their UP counterparts, the buses had to turn back and retrace their route to Bhopal.
Earlier, thousands of labourers had gathered at Johariya village in Datia district on MP-UP border as Uttar Pradesh had closed its borders. Before that, Barwani administration had sent such labourers in about 200 buses to Uttar Pradesh but they were stuck in Datia as UP had closed its border.
The Congress sate media vice president Bhupendra Gupta alleged that the MP officials had not anticipated that Uttar Pradesh would act in this manner, especially since the labourers included pregnant women and couples with kids.
On May 2, 114 migrant labourers, who belong to Uttar Pradesh were allowed their home state after waiting for 42 days in Satna district. These 114 labourers, including women and their children, belonging to Barabanki district in Uttar Pradesh, used to stay in Chhattisgarh’s Bilaspur district. When reports of lockdown emerged due to outbreak of coronavirus, these labourers somehow managed to reach Satna district on a train on March 22.
As soon as nationwide lockdown was announced the Satna administration provided accommodation to them in a makeshift camp. On April 26, Satna administration arranged buses for these migrant labourers and dropped them to Uttar Pradesh-Madhya Pradesh border, but the UP Police denied entry to them.
The administration again arranged accommodation and food facilities for them. The chief secretary was apprised of the matter, who, in turn, contacted his counterpart in Uttar Pradesh. After intervention from the very top, the labourers, who had spent 42 days in Satna, were finally allowed to enter UP and were handed over to Prayagraj administration.
