New Delhi, Feb 28 (PTI) Left parties on Monday accused the Centre of indulging in "propaganda and photo-ops" instead of bringing back Indian students stranded in Ukraine, but welcomed its decision to send a ministerial delegation to some eastern European nations to coordinate evacuation efforts.

The government has decided to send four Union ministers to the neighbouring countries of Ukraine to coordinate the evacuation process of Indians, including students.

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Union ministers Hardeep Puri, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Kiren Rijiju and V K Singh will be going as "special envoys" of India, government sources said on Monday.

Scindia will take care of evacuation efforts from Romania and Moldova while Rijiju will go to Slovakia.

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The sources said that Puri will go to Hungary while Singh will be in Poland to manage the evacuation.

"Modi govt had sufficient lead time to evacuate Indians from Ukraine with Russia declaring its military intentions. Instead focus is on propaganda, spin and photo ops. GoI must get its act together & evacuate hapless Indians like it did during the Gulf War," said CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury in a tweet.

The decision to send a team to Ukraine was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"Ministerial team is a welcome initiative. Make sure that they reach all the borders in east and west Ukraine. Our embassy staff in all neighbouring countries need to be deployed to the borders. Trains, buses and cars should be mobilised to transport Indians to the nearest airport," said CPI MP Binoy Viswam in a tweet.

Several ministers, including External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, also attended the meeting.

Modi had chaired a meeting on the Ukraine crisis on Sunday too and had asserted that ensuring the safety of Indian students and evacuating them is the government's top priority.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)