CM Mamata Banerjee details train plan .....Railway minister Piyush Goyal attacks Trinamul chief saying more resources must be deployed to bring back the stranded

Meghdeep Bhattacharyya, TT, 15.05.20, Calcutta: Mamata Banerjee on Thursday elaborated on her earlier announcement regarding 100-plus trains being arranged by her government to bring back migrant workers and others from Bengal stranded in 15 states.

The 105 trains will ferry migrants from Gujarat, Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir and Delhi. They will arrive at Howrah, Asansol, Kharagpur, Malda Town, Burdwan, Behrampore and New Jalpaiguri. The first of them is scheduled to reach the state on Sunday, while the last is expected on June 15.

The chief minister’s statement on Twitter prompted an attack, also on the microblogging site, from railway minister Piyush Goyal, who claimed the state needed to allow 105 trains daily to bring back the stranded, not over a month.

Mamata tweeted in the afternoon: “Towards our commitment to helping all our people stuck in different parts of the country and who want to return to Bengal, I am pleased to announce that we have arranged 105 additional special trains.”

“Over the coming days, these special trains will embark from different states for various destinations across Bengal bringing our people back home,” Mamata wrote.

Later in the evening, Goyal directly replied to Mamata’s tweets. “I feel sad that while there is a need for 105 trains/day to bring back migrants to WB, the state is accepting only 105 trains over 30 days. I once again hope for the sake of Bengali brothers & sisters in different parts of the country, that WB will accept them back with open arms,” the railway minister wrote.

“Many migrants want to return to WB & if state doesn’t accept them then we may find more cases of migrants & even children walking for hundreds of kms &resorting to other dangerous means. WB should speed up setting up of adequate arrangements to receive their own migrants,” Goyal added.