Cong seeks to control damage over Bandra incident

New Delhi, April 15 (IANS) Facing heat over use of force by the police to disperse crowd in Bandra, Mumbai, the Congress has deployed two senior Ministers Balasahab Thorat and Ashok Chavan on the damage control mission.The Congress is part of the Uddhav Thackeray-led coalition government in Maharashtra and has been criticial of the treatment meted out to migrants in various parts of the country during the lockdown due to Covid-19 pandemic.The Ministers blamed the Bandra incident on the news, which went viral on social media, that Jansadharan trains would ply from the terminus.Rejecting any conspiracy, Chavan said proper action would be taken against those responsible for it.While senior Congress leaders, including Anand Sharma, spoke in critical voice that migrants wanted "rotis not lathis (bread not beating)", the Maharashtra Ministers said it was "not the roti issue" but people wanted to go home. The state was feeding over 700,000 people a day, they added.Even Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi has criticised the Centre for overlooking the migrants.Chavan said several PWD properties had been converted into isolation centres with 55,000 beds. Mumbai being a big international transit point, it become a Covid-19 hotspot, he said and added, 10 districts in the state had reported no cases.
--IANS miz/pcj