It will not be an exaggeration to say that the way the problems of migrant workers and the students scattered in many parts of the country have been handled by Yogi the Aditynath government of Uttar Pradesh deserve kudos. Uttar Pradesh happens to be the passage of the migrant workers of other states, therefore, it had to bear major brunt than other states. Remember the crowd of migrant workers, which was made to assemble at Anand Vihar Bus Terminal only a few days after the first lockdown. Most of them were from Delhi. Thus, it was the primary responsibility of the government of Delhi to have taken care of them but instead of that, the buses of DTC were arranged to ferry them to Anand Vihar Bus Station. Yogi government did the splendid job by arranging hundreds of buses to take them to their native places in Uttar Pradesh and those who belonged to Bihar and Jharkhand were dropped at the border. State governments were requested to take them to their respective places.
There have been several videos of migrant workers where they have expressed satisfaction over the treatment by the UP Police. A new, humane, and benign face of the UP Police came to the fore during the lockdown, which was applauded by everybody. Even now most of the workers prefer to assemble in NOIDA and Ghaziabad instead of Delhi reiterating their faith in the arrangements of the UP government.
The other glorious work of the UP government was to bring hundreds of students from Kota in fully sanitised buses. It won the laurels of the students and their parents, who felt obliged to the UP government for what it did to them. Taking a cue from the UP government other state governments also planned to bring the students of their states from Kota and other places. Besides, every household belonging to the EWS category has been distributed six Kilograms of ration and Rs. 1000/ to meet the crisis of COVID-19.
Therefore, the game of one-upmanship, which was played by Priyanka Vadra in the name of arranging one thousand buses to help migrant workers has completely boomeranged on her for many reasons. Firstly, she and her party did not bother about a large number of migrant workers of Punjab, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh but she volunteered to help the UP government to score the political brownie points. If at all, she was genuinely interested in helping the migrant workers she should have taken care of the workers of the aforementioned states to drop them to their native places. Therefore, the offer made by Ms Priyanka Vadra was hollow, insincere and reeked of dirty politics.
Secondly, if she was pitying the migrant workers, she should have made proper arrangements for buses and not tempos, motorcycles and trucks. It was for anybody to see that fleet of buses which was exhibited for photos and videos belonged to Rajasthan government. If the Rajasthan government was so serious about the workers, why did it not do for those who were stranded there and wanted to go to their homes? Moreover, it should first bring the Rajasthani workers who are still stuck up in other states. To top it all, if the arrangements for the buses were to be made by Rajasthan government, why did Ms Priyanka Vadra want to steal the limelight?
The bigger problem is awaiting to all states. With the exodus of migrant workers, there will be an acute problem of the workforce in all the industrialised places. Therefore, the state governments will have to structure the solution to retain those workers who have still not left to their native places and bring back those who have already gone to their homes. The ideal situation will be to generate employment for the workers at the local level so that they do not feel emotionally and socially alienated from the ambience in which they have been born and brought up.
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