Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Saturday slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the rising number of COVID-19 cases in the country. Chidambaram asked PM Modi to explain why India failed in defeating the coronavirus pandemic when other countries "seem to have succeeded".
Taking to Twitter, the former Finance Minister said, "The only country that is not reaping the benefit of the lockdown strategy appears to be India. PM Modi who promised that we will defeat coronavirus in 21 days must explain why India failed when other countries seem to have succeeded."
Chidambaram further said that he had predicted the total number of infections will reach 55 lakh by September 30, however, the Congress leader said that he was wrong. "India will reach that number by September 20. By end September, the number may touch 65 lakh," he said.
Meanwhile, India on Friday recorded 86,432 new COVID-19 cases, taking the tally to 40,23,179. The death toll in the country jumped to 69,561 after 1,089 patients succumbed to the deadly infection.
There are 8,46,395 active cases, while 31,07,223 people have recovered.
India is likely to go past Brazil in the total cases tally soon. Brazil has 40,91,801 cases, while India is at 40,23,179. The United States is the worst-hit country with 6,387,052 cases.
