Yogi Govt calls Priyanka Gandhi’s offer of buses to ferry migrants a `scam’

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LUCKNOW: The controversy over 1000 buses offered to Yogi Government by Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra for ferrying migrants refuses to die down.

In a fresh twist the UP government on Tuesday charged the Congress party of a ‘farziwada’ (scam) claiming that the list of buses included two and three wheelers, private vehicles as well as goods carrier.

Addressing a hurriedly called press conference cabinet minister and spokesperson Siddharth Nath Singh alleged that the offer of 1000 buses was a “political stunt” and demanded an explanation from Congress President Sonia Gandhi.

According to him, a preliminary scrutiny of the list of registration numbers of buses provided by the Congress party yesterday had revealed that a number of them were registered as goods carriers, private vehicles, two wheelers and three wheelers.

The minister said that the registration numbers were being verified from the government of India portal.

Refusing to answer a question about how many of the 1000 registration numbers were of other vehicles, he said that the exercise to verify them was still going.

Earlier in the day, after several days of back and forth, Additional chief secretary, Avanish Awasthi (Pa.Sa 952/ACS/2020 dated 19 May,2020) had asked the Congress leaders to provide 500 buses each to Magistrates of Ghaziabad and Nodia districts.

The letter further stated that the concerned district magistrates would use the buses only after verifying the buses’ permits, fitness, insurance etc and drivers’ license and conductor’s papers.

This decision was finalized after a nightlong ping-pong match of letters between the ACS Awasthi and Gandhi-Vadra’s private secretary Sachin Singh.

After dilly-dallying for two days on Monday evening Awasthi had responded to Priyanka’s letter of May 16 in which she had made the offer. In his reply addressed to her private secretary(Pa.San 948ACC/2020 dated 18 May,2020) Awasthi referred to the May 16 letter and accepted the offer requesting a list of the names and contact details of the drivers and conductors of the buses.

Within hours, Singh responded to the letter by email in which he had attached the list of drivers and conductors and other details sought by Awasthi and assured to provide some additional details after re-verification.

He also mentioned in his letter that he expected the UP government to put the buses in service by May 19 and make available the route of the buses and the timetable to the common people.

However, the matter was far from settled. Awasthi shot off another letter to Singh (Pa.San.951ACSCamp/2020 dated 18 May, 2020) referring to his earlier email. This according to Singh was mailed to him at 11.40 pm on May 18, 2020.

In this missive, Awasthi had also sought the fitness certificates of the buses, driver’s license, as well as full details of the conductors.

Also by 10 am on May 19 Awasthi had wanted all the buses at Vrindavan Yojana Sector 15-16 in Lucknow handed over to the District Magistrate of Lucknow.

Responding to Awasthi’s second letter, Singh wrote back at 2.10 am on May 19, 2020 in which he charged the administration of politicizing the issue.

“Aisa lagta nahi hai keh aapki sarkar vipda ke marey hamarey UP ke shramik bhai-behnon ki madad karna chahti hai” (It does not appears that your government wants to help our pandemic hit worker brothers and sisters of UP).

In his letter Singh points out that, the media was continuously showing that lakhs of workers are stranded at various borders of UP especially in Delhi-UP’s border areas like Ghaziabad and Noida.

However despite repeated attempts Awasthi was not available for comments.