2020 migrant exodus: PM right in blaming Opposition? Congress, Sena, AAP reply

Almost two years after the Covid pandemic first hit India, the migrant exodus seen during the first lockdown in 2020 featured in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech in Parliament.

Replying to the Opposition during the discussion on the Motion of Thanks on the President's Address, PM Modi accused parties like Congress and Aam Aadmi Party of engineering the exodus and thus, causing waves of infection in other states.

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The Prime Minister's allegations received vehement responses from the Opposition parties.

Congress' Mumbai unit said it was proud to have supported common people and "if the situation was left in the hands of PM Modi, millions would have died on highways returning home on foot." Congress further said, "Lies have no feet, and the blood-stained feet of poor Indians do not lie."

Maharashtra minister Balasaheb Thorat said that the first lockdown had been imposed by the Modi government without any warning, leaving lakhs of labourers in the lurch. He said that many labourers lost their lives while travelling on foot. Thorat accusing the Modi government of doing nothing to relieve the poor people's pain while Congress paid for sending 50,000 people home, while the Maharashtra government budgeted Rs 200 crore to help labourers get home.

Priyanka Chaturvedi of the Shiv Sena, which is part of the ruling alliance in Maharashtra, said that if providing food and shelter to daily wage labourers is wrong, then the party would make the mistakes a hundred times "for humanity".

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal accused PM Modi of telling "blatant lies". He said that the PM should show compassion for those who suffered during the pandemic, instead of playing politics.

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