Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Punjab President and Member of Parliament (MP) Bhagwant Mann on Wednesday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led Centre of giving priority to Assembly election campaign in Uttar Pradesh over the evacuation of 20,000 students stranded in war-torn Ukraine.

Mann said AAP has been asking the Modi government to evacuate Indian students safely and free of cost since before the war and Russian invasion.

“But the Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party government was too focused on their Assembly election campaign in Uttar Pradesh and they prioritised it over the lives of 20,000 students,” he said.

The AAP leader said even the first advisory for Indian students to leave Ukraine came too late and without any actual government assistance with it, where private airlines were changing triple and the government did nothing to regulate that.

Mann added even now by naming this evacuation operation as Mission Ganga Modi and BJP just wants to take political advantage of such an unfortunate situation and this attitude of the Union government is disappointing.

He said vague advisories of the Indian Embassy and the non-seriousness of the Narendra Modi government are costing students much.

Expressing grief on the demise of Indian student Naveen Sekharappa in Kharkiv, Mann said concerned ministries and the Embassy should act more responsibly by suggesting route plans and means reach borders of neighboring countries along with advisories for the stranded students.

The AAP leader said it is impossible for students stranded in eastern parts of Ukraine to reach borders in the west. Cities like Kharkiv and Sumy are near the Russian border, so the Indian government should try to have a dialogue with Russia urging a ceasefire and evacuating students from that side.

Students are facing so many difficulties, no food, no means to reach the borders of Romania, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, and now backlash from locals due to the UNSC vote issue, so the least Prime Minister Modi can do is be more sensitive about this and prioritize it over his election campaign in UP, he said.