'Injustice': Amit Shah says Mamata govt not letting migrants' trains reach West Bengal

Union Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah on Saturday wrote to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee informing her that the central government is not getting the TMC-led Bengal state government's support in helping migrant labourers reach home. The issue revolves around the lack of cooperation between the central and state governments over the migrant workers' crisis.

Shah said that the West Bengal government is not allowing trains with migrants to reach the state, thereby paving the road towards creating further hardships for the workers. The Union Home Minister called this 'injustice' to migrant labourers.

Referring to the 'Shramik Special' trains being run by the central government to facilitate the transportation of migrant workers from different parts of the country to various destinations, Shah said that the Centre has facilitated more than two lakh migrants workers to reach home.

The Home Minister said migrant workers from West Bengal are also eager to reach home and the central government is also facilitating the train services.

"But we are not getting expected support from the West Bengal. The state government of West Bengal is not allowing the trains reaching to West Bengal. This is injustice with West Bengal migrant labourers. This will create further hardship for them," Shah wrote in his letter to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Notably, the Centre and the Bengal government have clashed frequently amid the coronavirus outbreak in the country, with an IMCT (inter-ministerial central team), which visited the state to review its handling of the crisis, this week accusing Banerjee's administration of taking an "antagonistic view".

In its observations on Monday, the central team said the high mortality rate in the state was a "clear indication of low testing and weak surveillance, tracking".

The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had earlier last month issued a letter to the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal state government regarding the reported dilution and widescale violation of lockdown and social distancing measures in a few regions in Kolkata. In a strongly-worded letter to the West Bengal state government, the MHA had demanded reasons for the lapses in social distancing norms and lockdown measures in the state.

West Bengal governor Jagdeep Dhankhar had also urged the Chief Minister of the state, Mamata Banerjee, to 'end lockdown' with Raj Bhawan and take a 'correctional approach', hinting at the alleged informal animosity between the Trinamool Congress-led West Bengal government and the central government.

Meanwhile last week, the Centre allowed states to run special trains to ferry migrant workers stranded in various parts of the country, providing they displayed no COVID-19 symptoms and underwent a mandatory quarantine period on arrival.

Railways have run 222 Shramik Special Trains for movement of stranded persons, more than 2.5 lakh people have made use of this facility so far.