TN: CITU Urges Workers to be Vigilant Against BJP’s Misinformation on Migrants

Chennai: A Bihar government delegation that visited Tamil Nadu, confirmed that viral videos claiming Bihari migrants were being targeted in the southern state, were fake and that there was a deliberate attempt to spread enmity.

“The Tiruppur district administration took confidence-building measures by creating a special cell, setting up helplines and taking action against those who spread fake news. This has controlled the unrest, everything is normal,” Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer D Balamurugan, told the press on Tuesday. He was part of the fact-finding delegation which was sent after videos of the alleged attacks led to panic among the state’s migrant workers. 

Reaching out to the migrant workers' community in Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister M K Stalin on Tuesday interacted with a group of labourers at a latex unit in Tirunelveli.

Meanwhile, the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazagham’s (DMK) deputy general secretary A Raja hit out at Lok Janshakti Party chief Chirag Paswan and said the latter could “do his politics” of being “Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) B-Team” in Bihar, but not in Tamil Nadu.

Paswan was in Chennai on Monday. He called on Governor RN Ravi and submitted a memorandum on the issue while demanding a thorough probe into the allegations of attack on Bihari workers.

The Tamil Nadu police have so far booked the TN BJP chief K Annamalai, BJP Uttar Pradesh spokesperson Prashant Umrao, an editor of Dainik Bhaskar newspaper and a few others on charge of spreading fake news.

CALL TO REMAIN VIGILANT

Responding to the issue, the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) has urged the working people of the country to remain vigilant and counter communal-divisive forces which are circulating fake videos to gain political mileage.

“It is the BJP which betrayed the migrant workers by repealing the Inter-State Migrant Workers Act, 1979 in the process of labour law codification?” read the CITU statement dated March 7.

“It has done away with all protections and legal rights to the migrant workers that too during the peak of their sufferings due to the most stringent lockdown,” the statement further read.

"There may be individual incidents of mistreatment of migrants, but they should not be manipulated as a public outcry for political gains," Augustine Gangmei, Migrant Worker's Protection Movement, told NewsClick.

"If there are such strong anti-Hindi sentiments as claimed by the rumours it is not possible for lakhs of people from other states to work in Tamil Nadu," said Gangmei.

“The response from the state was good. The chief minister and DGP responded swiftly. The police are being extra vigilant to prevent any untoward incident. Even in the workplaces, there have been welcome reactions," he added.

‘BJP PLAYING DIVISIVE POLITICS’

The DMK and its allies said BJP was spreading hate politics because they were worried about South and North Indian unity.

Some  fake videos were circulated following Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin’s birthday celebration on March 1. Many opposition party leaders participated in the event and gave a call to unite against the BJP for the 2024 parliamentary elections.

“Leaders from North Indian states, like Tejaswhi Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav, attended CM Stalin’s birthday. The BJP is trying to create a false impression that they are allying with forces that mistreat north Indian migrants,” said K Kanakaraj, Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M) state secretariat member.

“They spread such news with full consciousness that it is false. Once it has reached one crore, people, can it be disproved?” he said.

“In just one day this sensational news portraying Tamils, Tamil Nadu police and the DMK government as barbaric reached so many people,” he added.

Dainik Bhaskar daily, which has 45.79 lakh subscribers, carried it. Prashant Patel Umrao’s tweet claiming “dozens of migrant Bihar workers were killed in Tamil Nadu” got 14,000 likes and was shared by 6,000 people, including many BJP MLAs.

“These MLAs are not concerned about the welfare of the workers. How many of them took efforts to bring the migrant workers back home during the Corona lockdowns? Like usurers they shamelessly took money from the Tamil Nadu government for running a train,” Kanakaraj said.

During the Covid pandemic, the Tamil Nadu government bore the cost for migrant workers returning to their home states.

“These developments will also create fear and anxiety in Tamil people living and working in other parts of the country,” he added.

There are approximately 10 lakh workers from other states working in Tamil Nadu. The DMK government has initiated a survey of the migrant workforce in the state.