Congress slams Modi for “Corona super-spreaders” remark
The members of the MPCC’s north Indian cell are also sending 1 lakh letters to their relatives in Uttar Pradesh asking them to vote for the Congress
Mumbai: Accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of insulting “hardworking” north Indian migrants by referring to them as “Corona super-spreaders”, the north Indian cell of the state Congress has warned the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of political retribution during the Uttar Pradesh polls and forthcoming local body elections in Maharashtra.
“Narendra Modi is an ungrateful Prime Minister. The north Indians have elected him as a member of parliament from Varanasi and made him the Prime Minister. They are hardworking people. Yet, he has derided them as Corona (super-spreaders),” charged Umakant Agnihotri, who heads the north Indian cell of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC).
“The voters will teach Modi and (Uttar Pradesh) chief minister Yogi Adityanath a lesson in the Uttar Pradesh polls,” he warned. Agnihotri added that the remarks would also have an impact in Maharashtra, where Hindi-speaking voters form a substantial chunk of the electorate in cities like Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Nashik and Nagpur. These voters have however supported the BJP in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha and state assembly elections.
The members of the MPCC’s north Indian cell are also sending 1 lakh letters to their relatives in Uttar Pradesh asking them to vote for the Congress. The letters state that these migrants could settle and find security in Maharashtra due to the efforts of successive Congress governments and call on their relatives back home to support the party.
In his reply to the debate on the President’s speech, the PM on Monday had said, “During the first wave, when the country was in lockdown at that time the W.H.O. [World Health Organization] and all health experts advised people across the world to stay wherever they are. For, an affected person will take Corona along with him wherever he goes. At that time, Congress workers stood at Mumbai stations and distributed free tickets and instigated migrant brothers and sisters to leave Mumbai.”
“They (the workers) were told, ‘You belong to UP and Bihar. Go back and spread Covid there.’ It was done to lessen the pressure on Maharashtra. This was a wrong thing to do. You created chaos and put worker brothers and sisters in great difficulties,” the PM said amid protests from the Congress in the Lok Sabha.