The Trinamool Congress hit out at the Union government for pushing the cost of ferrying migrant workers home on the States and said West Bengal is being unfairly targeted by false claims on masking numbers and “high mortality rate” in COVID-19 cases.
Trinamool Congress leader Derek O’Brien said the case fatality is an absurd metric for judging fatalities. “Epidemiologists around the world advise against getting into this early comparison because different regions are in different periods of the pandemic cycle,” he said at a virtual press conference. The Inter-Ministerial Central Team, in a letter to the Ministry of Home Affairs, had said not only is the West Bengal government masking its numbers but also the mortality rate is the highest here.
The TMC instead trained its guns at the PM CARES Fund. “This fund should be renamed as PM Doesn’t Care,” he said considering it is not being spent in helping any one during the pandemic and it can’t even be audited by CAG. “At best the PM CARE Fund is a private enterprise of the BJP,” he added.
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“The treasurer of the world’s wealthiest party, Mr. Piyush Goyal, is the Railway Minister. Can’t his party fund the migrant workers’ journey back home?” he asked.
Party MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay alleged that the Centre’s lack of managerial efficiency in announcing the lockdown was the reason behind the suffering of the migrant workers.
Earlier, the Centre has clarified that 85% of the fare of the workers will be borne by the Railways and the rest will be paid by the State governments upon whose request the trains are being run.
