Bus row: R'than BJP chief Satish Poonia says Cong doing 'shallow politics'

Rajasthan BJP president Satish Poonia on Tuesday accused the Congress of doing "shallow politics" by allegedly including ambulances and autorickshaws in a list of buses sent by the opposition party to the Uttar Pradesh government to ferry migrant workers.

He said the Uttar Pradesh government is capable of dealing with issue of migrant workers and the Congress should worry about migrants in the states of Rajasthan and Punjab where it is in power.

"It is a known fact that the Congress does politics. It is also known that it does shallow politics. But it was not known that it will do such shallow politics. The Congress party has also made a global pandemic like coronavirus a political weapon for cheap popularity," Poonia said.

In Rajasthan, he alleged, thousands of migrant workers have been walking home on foot since the last 15 days, but the Congress is doing politics instead of directing the states it rules to help the workers.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Uttar Pradesh government said the list of 1,000 buses offered by the Congress to ferry migrant workers contained registration numbers of autorickshaws and cars, fuelling a war of words between the two sides.

The Congress rejected the UP government claim, challenging it to conduct a "physical verification" of the buses.

On May 16, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra offered to provide 1,000 buses for migrant workers from Uttar Pradesh stranded in other states because of the coronavirus-induced lockdown.

The Congress initially claimed that the state's BJP government was ignoring the offer with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath refusing even to give an appointment to a party delegation.

Even while accusing the Congress of playing politics over the plight of migrant workers, the UP government on Monday formally accepted the offer. It asked the Congress to submit a list of the buses and their drivers and conductors.