Soon after Congress interim chief Sonia Gandhi announced that her party will bear expenses on rail tickets for stranded migrants across India, senior party leader Ahmed Patel on Monday said he had asked all state units to mobilise all possible resources for the cause and urged people to make it a "people's movement".
Patel, Congress treasurer and Rajya Sabha MP from Gujarat, tweeted: "As directed by the Congress President, in my capacity as Treasuer (All India Congress Committee) I request Pradesh Congress Committees to mobilise all possible local resources to help the migrants purchase tickets to get back home."
"Let us make this into a people's movement, please contact AICC if you require assistance," he said.
His statement came soon after Sonia Gandhi pointed out to the plight of migrants stuck across the country and money charged from them for ferrying them back to their home states and announced that her party will bear the cost of their rail tickets.
Sonia Gandhi's announcement came amid the reports that the migrants were being charged for their travel by trains to their respective states.
The railways has earlier said that it was charging the state governments for the Shramik special train tickets.
The railways also clarified that the Shramik Special trains are meant for "nominated people" identified and registered by state governments and the railways will not issue any tickets to any individual or entertain any request from any groups.
The railways has started to run the Shramik Special trains for transporting the labourers from May 1, almost 40 days after the passenger, mail and Express trains services were suspended.
Till now the national transporter has run over a dozen of Shramik Special trains on the request of the state governments to ferry the migrant labourers.
( With inputs from IANS )