NEW DELHI: Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday led party’s ‘Speak up India’ campaign, asking the government to come to the rescue of lakhs of labourers and small traders who continue to battle the economic impact Covid and the lockdown.
In two video messages today, Sonia said the government must immediately open its coffers and help the needy and if it feels constrained about finances, it should scrap the costly Central Vista project that seeks to build a new Parliament complex and government buildings and use that money to feed the vulnerable.
In her morning message, Sonia cited the travails of migrant labourers who continue to walk back home thousands of kilometres without food and water and asked the government to arrange their free transport back to their home states.
“It is for the first time since Independence that the country has witnessed such a scale of pain and trauma, with lakhs of famished labourers forced to walk hundreds of kilometres in the absence of transport,” said Sonia, accusing the government of not doing enough for the poor.
After the Congress claimed the campaign had attracted a participation of 10 crore people, with 57 lakh party workers putting out social media messages, Sonia again posted a video saying, “The government will have to do what people desire.”
Congress leaders, working committee members and state presidents led by Sonia and her son Rahul Gandhi took to the social media spaces to reiterate party’s old demands, including cash transfer of Rs 7,500 per month in the account of every family for the next six months.