Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday hit out at the Centre and said that four stages of lockdown have not produced results Prime Minister Narendra Modi expected.
During a press conference, Rahul Gandhi said, "PM Modi had said we will defeat coronavirus in 21 days. Now we are in our fourth phase of lockdown. It is clear that our lockdown has failed. I would like to ask the government and PM Modi with due respect, as to what is the plan going forward? How do you plan to help businesses, migrants and the poor?"
He also said that the Congress party is running some states and the party is giving cash to people, including labourers. However, he alleged that the party was not getting any support from the Centre.
He said the result of the "failed lockdown" is in front of all. "We in the Congress want to understand what the government's view is. What is their view for going forward? We want to understand what is the strategy?" he said, adding that the Prime Minister and his entire advisory staff, including his top medical people said that the disease would start to reduce in May, whereas the cases are not reducing and are increasing.
"I want to ask the Prime Minister and the government, now that we have a failed lockdown, what is the strategy going forward and what is the strategy as far as opening India is concerned," he said.
He also said, "What are the precautions that they are going to take to curb this disease, and how they are thinking to support migrants, state governments, MSMEs.
"We have great expectations, multiple press conferences about the economic package. The Prime MInister said that the economic package was 10 per cent of GDP whereas the reality is that it is one per cent of GDP and hardly any cash is being given to people," the Congress MP from Kerala's Wayanad said.
Rahul Gandhi said, "Directly we are giving cash to farmers, labourers, but we are not getting any support from the central government. And it is becoming extremely difficult for our states to function without adequate support from central government."
This is Rahul Gandhi's fourth interaction with the media in the last 60 days amid the nationwide lockdown to combat the spread of novel coronavirus. He has interacted twice with the national media and once with the regional media.
