Senior Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury will meet Indian President Droupadi Murmu on Wednesday to discuss what he described as worsening conditions for migrant workers from West Bengal, who he says are facing discrimination, harassment and neglect in several parts of the country.
Chowdhury, a member of the Congress Working Committee and the party’s former Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, said that large numbers of workers from Bengal continue to leave the state due to shrinking job opportunities, stalled industries and a deteriorating economic environment. Once outside the state, he said, they often encounter exploitation and police scrutiny.
“Migrant workers from Bengal are being harassed in identity verification drives in Odisha, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Delhi,” Chowdhury told reporters in Kolkata on Tuesday. “They are sometimes treated as foreign nationals because of their language and appearance. This is not acceptable.”
Chowdhury said that both the West Bengal government, led by the Trinamool Congress, and the central government in New Delhi had failed to provide adequate protection or opportunities for workers. He accused the state government of trying to sidestep the issue by offering small welfare payments while ignoring systemic problems.
“The government thinks it has discharged its responsibility by giving them alms,” he said. “But their security and wages must be ensured. And when they return home, they must not be offered charity but proper employment opportunities.”
The West Bengal government runs a welfare scheme for registered migrant workers under which the family of a deceased worker receives 25,000 rupees ($300) to repatriate the body if the worker dies while employed outside the state. Chowdhury described this as inadequate and cosmetic.
“The state must stop dole politics and extortion,” he said. “Only by restoring law and order and by inviting industries sincerely will jobs return to Bengal. Otherwise, people will continue to migrate.”
Chowdhury also faulted the central government for what he called its silence on reports of migrant workers being assaulted or detained. “The Centre cannot shirk its responsibility either. Both governments have failed Bengal’s workers,” he said.
The opposition Congress has made migrant worker rights a recurring theme. The Pradesh Congress Committee in Bengal has held protests over the issue, while senior leader Rahul Gandhi has raised concerns at the national level. “Yet there is no visible improvement,” Chowdhury said.
Chowdhury appealed to workers and their families to share their grievances directly with him through messages, pledging to present them before the President during his meeting on Wednesday.
West Bengal, India’s fourth-most populous state, has a long history of labor migration, with workers moving to other states for jobs in construction, manufacturing, transport and services. According to unofficial estimates, millions of workers from Bengal are currently employed outside the state, making them vulnerable to poor working conditions, exploitation and political neglect.
Chowdhury said he hoped his meeting with Murmu would draw national attention to the plight of workers and prompt both the state and central governments to take corrective measures.
“I will place before the President the real situation and the real voices of Bengal’s migrant workers,” he said.
