At a time when famished groups of migrant workers are lurching into a infernal despair after trekking for weeks to homes they had not seen in months, the All India Congress Committee today have given a call for directly putting an amount of Rs 10,000 into the hands of persons outside the income tax bracket.

Come Thursday, the three hour long campaign will begin at 11 am, AICC general secretary, K C Venugopal said today.

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Nobel laureate Abhijit V Banerjee had earlier advocated the necessity of putting cash directly in the hands of the people hit by coronavirus.

But Banerjee’s call did not elicit a positive response from the BJP government perhaps as former AICC chief Rahul Gandhi had reiterated the Kolkata boy’s prescription to prosperity.

Underscoring his former party chief’s contention, Congress Rajya Sabha member Pradip Bhattacharya said during the day that putting cash directly into the hands of the people hit by Covid-19 have been the opinion of the best economists of the nation.

Instead of weakening their view point, the Amphan strengthens it, he said. Calling upon chief minister Mamata Banerjee to support the Congress’s demand, the former PCC chief said that the demand supports the need she had raised for funds over and above the funds to the tune of Rs 1,000 crores announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi after his aerial tour of the state last week.

Cash strapped by the twin impact of Covid and Amphan, the people need cash to buy goods in the market and in its turn an economy looking recession on the face, he said.

Setting his sights on a nationwide need for cash in the people’s pockets, Venugopal said this was a struggle to take forward the struggle of migrant workers, MSME labourers and daily wage earners. India’s travails should be in the minds of all cutting across the political divide.

It is unfortunate that instead of sympathising, the BJP government has continued to ignore their plight considering it to be just another Opposition agenda to catch the Union government on the wrong foot, he regretted. Setting aside the fallout of an shameful defeat in the Lok Sabha election, which gave the saffron camp a second mandate and withered the Congress support base, Venugopal has sought the protest from at least 50 lakh party activists.