Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday tweeted a sharp retort to the government's response in parliament on Monday about the data of migrants' deaths during coronavirus lockdown.
On Monday, Union Labour Minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar said that the government has no data about the death of migrants during the lockdown that began in March.
"The Modi government does not know how many migrants died during lockdown... how many lost jobs. If you didn't count... did nobody die? The sad part is that the government does not care about the loss of lives. The world saw them dying... Modi government was unaware," Rahul Gandhi tweeted in Hindi.
मोदी सरकार नहीं जानती कि लॉकडाउन में कितने प्रवासी मज़दूर मरे और कितनी नौकरियाँ गयीं। तुमने ना गिना तो क्या मौत ना हुई? हाँ मगर दुख है सरकार पे असर ना हुई, उनका मरना देखा ज़माने ने, एक मोदी सरकार है जिसे ख़बर ना हुई।
Several migrants were left jobless in March when the government declared one of the strictest lockdowns in the world to check the spread of coronavirus. Many of them died while on their way back to their villages from cities, on foot as the transport services remained shut.