Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Raut on Monday targeted the Centre for not making sufficient transport facility for migrant labourers to return home in the coronavirus-enforced lockdown but arranging special flights to bring back Indians stranded abroad.
He took potshots, through a cartoon, at the BJP-led government at the Centre over its 'Vande Bharat' mission and wondered if domestic migrant workers are paying the price for staying back in the country.
The senior Sena leader in the evening tweeted the cartoon where migrant labourers walking on railway tracks look frustrated as they do not have state provided means to return home.
A person in the cartoon looking at an aircraft bringing back stranded Indians from abroad says, "Our only fault was that we continued working here in our country."
'Vande Bharat' mission is written on the plane. The mega mission is aimed at evacuating stranded Indians from abroad.
Shiv Sena head and chief minister of Maharashtra Uddhav Thackeray has been demanding arrangement of adequate number of special trains for safe return of migrant labourers to their home states.
Meanwhile, the Shiv Sena, in an editorial in its mouthpiece "Saamana' targeted the BJP over its candidates for the May 21 polls to the Legislative Council and said the opposition party does not have enough votes in the assembly to get its fourth candidate elected.
The party chose a candidate like Gopichand Padalkar for MLC polls, who in the Lok Sabha elections had appealed to people to not vote for the BJP (Padalkar was not with BJP at that time). It has not given tickets to its key leaders like Vinod Tawde, Pankaja Munde and Eknath Khadse," it said.
The editorial expressed surprise over the candidate filed by the Congress, a constituent of the ruling coalition.
It was expected that an aggressive and well educated person like Sachin Sawant will get Congress nomination," it said.
Sawant is Maharashtra Congress general secretary and chief spokesperson. The Congress has fielded Rajesh Rathod, a little known face.