We did not seek immediate payment for diesel: Rajasthan Transport Minister on BJP’s allegation

Rajasthan Transport Minister Pratap Singh Khachariyawas said that the Ashok Gehlot-led state government provided diesel to over 120-150 buses from Uttar Pradesh that had arrived at Kota to ferry students back home without seeking immediate payment.

Rajasthan: While accusing the BJP of playing petty politics over the migrants' issue, Rajasthan Transport Minister Pratap Singh Khachariyawas said that the Ashok Gehlot-led state government provided diesel to over 120-150 buses from Uttar Pradesh that had arrived at Kota to ferry students back home without seeking immediate payment.

“On April 18, UP’s Ministry of Road Transport & Highways wrote a letter and also made a phone call requesting us to provide diesel to the buses that had reached Rajasthan from UP to ferry students back home. They said that they will make the payment later. So we provided them with diesel...He wrote another letter to us stating that they were running short of buses and requested us to provide them with buses as well. And so we did,” said Khachariyawas in a video message.

“Since students were involved, we did not seek any money from them,” added the Congress leader.

The statement came after BJP leader Sambit Patra tweeted accusing the Congress government in Rajasthan of not helping the UP government with diesel to transport students from Kota until payment of Rs. 19 lakh was made.

Stressing that the exchange of money between transport ministries of different states in common practice,Khachariyawas said, “the act of helping each other out with diesel and other things is common between transport ministries of different states, and so is the exchange of money. Once the buses reached UP, they (UP government) cleared the due payment for diesel.”

He further accused the BJP-led central as well UP government of ignoring the plight of migrants from the state stuck in Rajasthan, and said, “we were the ones who helped migrants from UP reach home by spending Rs. 2.6 crore without charging anything from them.”

Notably,the Rajasthan State Road Transport Corporation has transported around 7,500 migrant workers to various parts of the country through 210 'Shramik Special' buses of in the last few days.