Migrant workers in most host states have faced the brunt of the nationwide lockdown—underfed, penniless, frantic with worry and desperate to reach the haven of their faraway villages. But Karnataka’s flip-flop on travel made matters worse for them last week. Having first requested for trains to ferry workers to their home states, the government did a U-turn by stopping them. Then, rattled by the Opposition accusing it of treating workers as ‘bonded labour’, the B.S. Yediyurappa-led administration resumed the ‘Shramik Special’ trains.