Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday slammed the Modi Government’s decision to continue with the nationwide lockdown and the strategy of handling the coronavirus crisis. Rahul said the nationwide lockdown in India has failed as the coronavirus cases have spiked in this period.
“The lockdown in India has failed. Four stages of lockdown have not given the result that the Prime Minister expected,” Rahul said at a live press conference through his Twitter account.
He also slammed the Modi Government’s strategies of relaxing the lockdown and said, “India is the only country in world which is removing lockdown when the virus is exponentially rising.”
“PM and his entire advisory staff claimed coronavirus cases will come down, but this has not happened,” said Rahul Gandhi. “I want to ask PM Modi, what is the strategy of the Government,” Rahul said, adding, “They are thinking about curbing the disease, supporting migrants and supporting MSMEs.”
“Now that the lockdown has failed, we need to know the Government’s strategy on the next step. The Centre must divulge its Plan B,” Rahul Gandhi said.
“Congress is running some States. We are giving direct cash to the poor to help them survive in this crisis. We are not getting the Central Government’s support,” he said.
“Now it’s becoming difficult to run the Government without support. Congress Governments are supporting farmers, migrants, we are giving cash, but our States are not getting support from the Centre,” he said.
He sought to distance himself from reports suggesting a rift within the ruling coalition in Maharashtra amid the BJP frequent attacks for its “poor handling” of pandemic in the state.
“I would like to make a differentiation here. We are supporting the Government in Maharashtra, but we are not the key decision maker in Maharashtra,” he said in response to a question on the coronavirus crisis in the State.
Congress is a partner in the Shiv Sena-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition in the state with NCP being the other constituent of the Government. “We are decision makers in Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Puducherry. There is a difference between running the Government and supporting it,” he added.
“I said very categorically that Maharashtra is an important State, Mumbai is the financial capital and there is a lot of attention, they have a difficult situation and lots of attention needs to be given to the state by the Centre,” the former Congress chief said.
NCP leader Supriya Sule backed Rahul opinion. “He is absolutely right. It is a coalition. Everyone takes a decision together. Uddhav Thackeray takes everyone into confidence,” she said.