New Delhi: Lashing out at Narendra Modi government over the plight of migrant workers, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, on Thursday, urged the Union government to provide Rs 7500 to every poor family to overcome the crisis, for next six months. Speaking at Congress'' ''speak up'' campaign which was aimed to help raise the voice of poor, migrants, small businesses and the middle class to the Union government, Ms Gandhi said, "For the first time after independence, people have seen the pain and plight of the migrant workers travelling back bare foot. Everyone in the country saw their pain, heard their cries, but may be the government has still not seen it".
In a video message in Hindi, she said, "In the last two months the lockdown to tackle the spread of COVID-19 has created a huge problem of economic crisis in the country". Their pain and plight was heard by the entire nation but not by the government," she said. The Congress president also pointed out that crores of employment have been lost, many factories shut, farmers facing crisis in selling crops but the government is not addressing it. "The Congress has decided to raise the voice of the people. We urge the Union government to give relief to the needy people and provide every family Rs 7,500 for six months.
And immediately provide Rs 10,000 into their bank accounts," Ms Gandhi said. The Congress president also demanded to increase job days to 200 under MGNREGA and the government also needs to help the small and medium scale industries in this critical time. Along with Ms Gandhi''s call to help raise the voice of poor, senior leaders of the Congress like Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Ahmed Patel, Ambika Soni, Manish Tewari, Puduchery Chief Minster V Narayana Swamy, leaders from various states also participated in the campaign. Mr Gandhi, in a video message urged the government to provide immediate cash assistance to the poorest families in the country and increase the MNREGA working days to 200 days in a year to ease the burden of this pandemic on the people.
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