The Communist Party of India (CPI) on Wednesday staged a “stand-in protest” at the party headquarters here against the Centre’s apathy towards migrant workers. General secretary D. Raja led the protest.
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Such protests had already been held in several States: in Patna, Bihar, on May 1 and in Hyderabad, Telangana, and Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, this week. The protests, the party said, would continue till the government changed its position towards the workers and the poor.
Mr. Raja said the party had warned the Central government on the miseries of the poor and its refusal to deal with them with a human touch, but its pleas fell on deaf ears. “Our peaceful protests will continue and we hope the government will take care not to precipitate the crisis,” Mr. Raja said.
The CPI has demanded that the migrant workers and the poor, who are suffering hardships because of the lockdown, be provided with free ration, free medicines, free masks and free travel to their native places. He reminded the government that the migrant workers were an essential part of the economy.
Mr. Raja said there is a law — The Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979 — to regulate the condition of service of inter-State labourers. “The government must respect the Act and implement it without any dilution...,” he said.
