Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Uttar Pradesh counterpart Yogi Adityanath launched a war of words on Twitter late on Monday after the former alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was “blatantly lying” in Parliament on Monday regarding the exodus of migrant workers from Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) following the nationwide Covid-19 lockdown declared in March 2020.
Speaking in the Lok Sabha during his motion of thanks following the President’s address, PM Modi had blamed the Delhi government and accused it of instilling fear among migrant workers residing in Delhi and NCR through announcements that aggravated the scale of migration back to the villages and hometowns of the workers.
“They told them the danger is immense, go to your village, go home. Then they gave them buses, abandoned them halfway and plunged them into multiple problems,” Modi had said.
Responding to the statement, Kejriwal said that Modi’s allegation that the Delhi government had forced migrant workers to leave the capital was a “blatant lie”, adding that it was not proper for the Prime Minister to engage in politics over the sufferings of people. He also said that the PM was trying to pin the blame for Covid management failures on Opposition-ruled states.
“The country expects the Prime Minister to be sensitive to those who have suffered during these pandemic times, those who have lost their loved ones. It is not appropriate for a Prime Minister to indulge in politics on the sufferings of the people,” Kejriwal tweeted, while sharing the video of Modi’s statement.
The Delhi CM’s tweet triggered a response from Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who tweeted, “Listen Kejriwal, you forced the workers of UP to leave Delhi when all of humanity was groaning from the pain of Corona. Your government was so undemocratic and inhuman that even small children and women were left helpless at the UP border in the middle of the night. Should I call you a traitor to humanity or…”
Kejriwal responded to this tweet in similar vein, writing, “Listen Yogi, please stop here. When the bodies of the people of UP were flowing in the Ganga, you were busy spending crores to take out advertisement in TIME magazine to fetch you fake applause. I have never seen such a cruel and heartless administrator.”
