Shivalik
On Tuesday, Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi dismissed chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s comment that other states will have to seek his government’s permission to engage workers from Uttar Pradesh as “absolutely absurd." Gandhi said that people are not Yogi's personal property for him to permit them to work in other states.
While talking at a video news conference, Rahul Gandhi said, “I think it’s unfortunate. I think people are first Indian and then they belong to their states. The decision on whether somebody goes to work from Uttar Pradesh to the rest of the country is not the chief minister’s. It is of the people of India and the people of Uttar Pradesh."
Yogi Adityanat while interacting with the media at a webinar organised by the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) on Sunday said that other states will have to take permission from his government to engage workers from Uttar Pradesh.
“If any state wants manpower, the state government will have to guarantee social security and insurance of the workers. Without our permission they will not be able to take our people…because of the way they were treated in some states,” Yogi had said.
Unhappy with these remarks, the Congress leader said that people from Uttar Pradesh should have the right to work wherever they want. “If a citizen of Uttar Pradesh wants to go and fulfil his dreams in Maharashtra or in Delhi or in Karnataka or anywhere else, he should have the right to do so,” he said.
“It is very unfortunate that the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh views India in such a way. These people are not his personal property. They are not the personal property of Uttar Pradesh. These people are Indian citizens and they have the right to decide what they want to do and they have the right to live the life they want to live,” Gandhi added.
He said that a certain state government has no right to tell a worker to work or not work in another state. "It’s an absolutely absurd position,” the former Congress chief said.
