PM & Rupani should quit if migrant workers in Gujarat are not protected: Congress

New Delhi: The Congress on Monday blamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Vijay Rupani for the attacks and violence on migrant workers in Gujarat and said they should quit if they are unable to carry out their responsibilities.

The opposition party also trained its guns on Modi, saying how he would go to Varanasi and face the people of the state who made him the prime minister, after attacks on migrant labour from UP in Gujarat, a state of which he was the chief minister for long.

Congress President Rahul Gandhi held the targeting of migrant workers in Gujarat as "completely wrong".

Taking to Twitter, he claimed the root cause of violence in Gujarat was the closure of factories and unemployment in the state. "There is nothing more frightening than poverty. The root cause of the violence in Gujarat is the closed down factories and unemployment there. Both the system and that economy are reeling.

"Making migrant labour their target is completely wrong. I stand totally against it," he said in Hindi on Twitter.

Congress spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi alleged the "politics of exclusion" continues in Gujarat, while the concerned BJP chief ministers have done nothing to protect the interests of their constituents.

"I directly hold chief minister Vijay Rupani and prime minister Narendra Modi responsible for this kind of violence and incidents on migrant labour and the kind of pressure being put on them.

"If they do not take responsibility for this and provide the 'Ram Rajya' that they claimed, then they should quit their posts as they have no moral right to continue and hold such important positions and undertake responsibilities," she told reporters. Chaturvedi alleged this is the BJP's mindset, wherever it gets to power.

"I want to ask Modi ji as to what he is doing on this. You became the prime minister from Uttar Pradesh and sought votes in Bihar and now you are harrassing them and are trying to send them home," she said.

"UP and Bihar is used by Mr Modi only for political gains, while in Gujarat, people of Bihar and UP are mistreated. Mr Modi was elected to the Parliament through Varanasi, but what is he doing to protect the livelihood of these people?," she said, alleging this phenomenon has been seen in Maharashtra too. She charged MNS chief Raj Thackeray was also talking of removing people from UP, Bihar and Rajasthan from Maharashtra. She said in Assam certain sections were being targeted in the name of NRC. Meanwhile, additional forces were deployed in industrial areas for the security of Hindi-speaking migrants after attacks on them sparked their exodus that prompted the state government on Monday to make an appeal for their return.