Vijayan scoffs at Sonia's call to party for paying train bills

True to his style of scorning political adversaries, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday dismissed Congress President Sonia Gandhi's directive to respective party units to foot the travel bill (train tickets) of all migrant labourers returning from Kerala to their home states.

"What are you saying, will such things ever work," said Vijayan in response to a question on the issue.

When this question again surfaced, Vijayan's response was the same. "What are you asking, I said this because, we have all seen how and what happened to similar directives in the past," he said.

In Kerala there are over 3.80 lakh migrant labourers lodged in over 18,000 labour camps and since last Saturday, around 13,000 of them have left in special trains.

Vijayan clarified that the cost of the travel is borne by the passengers themselves.

( With inputs from IANS )