The Congress on Saturday alleged that the country paid the price for the Modi Government's "incompetence" during the second wave of Covid-19. The party targeted the Centre over the handling of the pandemic with the hashtag "ZimmedarKaun" (who is responsible) on social media and raised the issue of shortage of beds, oxygen and medicines when India was at the crest of the second wave.
Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of putting politics and propaganda ahead of Indian's wellbeing while Priyanka Gandhi launched a series of attacks against the government over its handling of the second wave of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic.
The Congress leaders criticism of the Prime Minister was a part of her 'Zimmedaar Kaun?' (Who is responsible?) campaign where she said that during the crisis PM Modi's 'incompetence at governance' was on display.
"He (the prime minister) simply retreated and waited for the worst to pass. The Prime Minister of India has behaved like a coward. He has let our country down," Priyanka Gandhi said in a statement which she posted on her Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts.
"Indians do not come first for him. Politics does. Truth does not concern him, propaganda does," t
Priyanka alleged and urged people to question the government over its handling of the crisis.
Priyanka also said that PM Modi concentrated on building image when he decided to export vaccines to other countries and did not bother to think about his own countrymen. She also said that the vaccine registration platform is 'convoluted' and 'designed to slow down the vaccination process' in her statement.
"Instead of distributing free vaccines across the world to boost his own image, had he paused for a moment and protected his countrymen first, the people would not be standing in line today grappling with a convoluted registration system designed to slow down the vaccine process," Priyanka said.
Rahul alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi chose not to listen to the recommendations of the Empowered Group, which was set up by his own government to tackle the pandemic and also ignored the recommendations of the parliamentary committee on health. Priyanka also said that from the beginning of the pandemic the Modi-led government avoided taking responsibility and hid the truth.
"As a consequence, when the second wave hit us with unprecedented force, the government lapsed into a state of inaction. This inaction enabled the virus to spread with far greater ferocity and cause untold suffering," she further added.
Priyanka Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi along with other senior leaders, including former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, have been very critical of the government's handling of Covid-19, especially when cases and deaths rose during the second wave.
Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi on separate occasions have also written to the Prime Minister providing suggestions and urging him to implement those.