New Delhi, May 16 (IANS): Amid a growing number of road accidents involving migrant workers returning to their native places, Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi on Saturday wrote to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to seek permission to hire and run 1,000 buses in the state to safely transport the returnees.

Priyanka Gandhi, who is also in charge of party affairs in eastern Uttar Pradesh, said that the Congress will bear the cost of these chartered buses at a time when the migrants are finding it tough to return homes safely.

"Lakhs of workers are trying to get back to their homes while walking from various parts of the country and there are not enough arrangements made for them. We wish to operate 500 buses each from Ghazipur and Noida borders," Priyanka Gandhi said in the letter to Yogi Adityanath.

She asserted that the "nation-builders cannot be left to fend for themselves in such times".

The letter was handed over to the Chief Minister's Office by a delegation led by Uttar Pradesh Congress unit chief Ajay Kumar Lallu.

In her letter, she said: "At least 65 migrant workers have lost lives in different road accidents in Uttar Pradesh, which is more than the number of people dying due to novel coronavirus in the state."

On Friday, the Congress General Secretary had urged the Chief Minister to deploy state-run buses for transporting the migrants.

Her remarks came after 24 migrant workers were killed and 15 others injured in a collision between two trucks in Auraiya district of Uttar Pradesh on Saturday morning. Hours later, several migrant workers were killed in another road accidents in Uttar Pradesh's Unnao and Madhya Pradesh's Sagar district.

Amid the nationwide lockdown since March 25, thousands of migrant workers have started returning to their native villages and hometowns on foot. Some returnees have been involved in fatal accidents on their way back home.