Union home minister Amit Shah has written to West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, saying the Centre is not getting the “expected support” from the state government to help migrant workers reach home.
Amit Shah pointed out that the Centre has facilitated more than 200,000 migrant labourers to reach home and that workers from West Bengal are also eager to go back.
“West Bengal government is not allowing trains with migrants reaching the state. This is injustice with WB migrant labourers. This will create further hardship for them,” Amit Shah said in his letter to Mamata Banerjee.
The issue of migrant workers is the latest flashpoint between the Centre and the West Bengal government amid a row over the state’s efforts to control the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).
The Centre and the state have exchanged allegations over the criteria for reporting deaths from the infection, and while While Bengal says the Centre is trying to politicise a public health crisis, the Union government maintains that state officials are ignoring repeated warnings to step up the fight against the disease.
Federal officials have said that the region was failing to conduct adequate tests and grappling with confusion and mismanagement over identifying hot spots and containing them.
