On Sunday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman took a break from announcing new reforms in the fifth tranche to lash out at Congress and the Opposition parties.
Urging Opposition parties to work together for migrants, she said the Centre was working with states and lashed out at the Congress, ‘begging Sonia Gandhi to speak more responsibly to deal with migrants’.
Answering a question by a journalist about Opposition criticism, she said that PM Modi had asked migrants to stay in states and that the government was trying its best to help migrants.
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She asked why Congress state governments weren’t asking for more trains to help migrants.
Taking particular umbrage with Rahul Gandhi sitting with migrants yesterday, she labelled the act ‘dramebaaz’ and begged the opposition to ‘stop its politics’.
She asked Rahul Gandhi why he didn't help the migrants. She said: "Was this the time? Wasn't that drama? Why are you wasting their time? Why didn't you carry their suitcase or their children?"
She further said: “With folded hands, I want to ask Sonia Gandhi, let us speak responsibly. Let us deal with our migrants more responsibly.”
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi met a group of migrant labourers walking back to their village in Uttar Pradesh near the Sukhdev Vihar flyover near the Delhi-Faridabad Border and interacted with them for an hour on Saturday.
The party on Saturday released photograph and video clips of Rahul Gandhi talking with the group, including women and children, who were walking from their work site near Ambala in Haryana to their village near Jhansi, a distance of over 700 km.
The Congress leader sat on the footpath on the Mathura Road with the group and heard them out, said a party leader.
The Congress later alleged that the police had taken the labourers in preventive custody following directions from the "top to do so."
Later, the opposition party arranged transport to sent the group to their destination.
"Adhering strictly to the law, at the request of Rahul Gandhi, volunteers of Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee have stepped up help the migrants returning to their native villages," said a close aide of the Congress leader.
