Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday took a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the economy.
Posting an edited video of the Prime Minister's fitness video of yore, Gandhi wrote, "Dear PM, Please try your magical exercise routine a few more times. You never know, it might just start the economy."
He also tagged the post with the hashtag 'Modinomics'.
To give a bit of context to the video in question: the original had been posted by the Prime Minister himself in response of Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli's fitness challenge.
The nearly two-minute long 2018 video shows Modi doing yoga asanas on the lawns of his Lok Kalyan Marg home. In the video, he can be seen walking, doing yoga and stretching on a rock, walking along a narrow path, and doing some breathing exercises.
Watch the original video below:
The video soon went viral, spurring the creation of countless jokes and memes.
Later, the Prime Minister would go on to pass the challenge on to HD Kumaraswamy. Then the Chief Minister of Karnataka, the latter tweeted in response that he was more concerned about the fitness of his state.
On Saturday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the second budget of the re-elected Modi government. Soon after, Rahul Gandhi had called the Union Budget 2020 'hollow'.
"The main issues confronting this country today are unemployment and the situation as far as the economy is concerned. I did not see any concrete idea, any strategic idea that would help our youngsters get jobs. I saw a lot of tactical stuff, redundant things, I did not see any central idea," Gandhi told reporters.
"I did not find any strategic thing in it. The main issue is employment and economy. There is redundancy and income tax has been complicated instead. The government's approach is visible in this budget. It did not have anything in it. It was hollow," he said.
Former prime minister Manmohan Singh said the budget speech was "too long" and the Trinamool Congress alleged that the government was lying on tax cuts and one should read the fine print on the so-called IT cuts, as government has removes incentives.
Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram gave it a score of zero to one out of 10 and asserted that the Modi government has given up on reviving the economy, accelerating growth or creating jobs.
The Left parties said it is a "budget of privatisation" and accused the government of abdicating its responsibilities.
The BJP on Sunday asserted that the government has initiated wide-ranging measures to kickstart the investment cycle and boost economic growth while maintaining fiscal discipline, as it hit back at the Congress over its criticism of the Union Budget 2020.
BJP spokesperson G V L Narasimha Rao said the Congress, when in power, had failed to address the challenges facing economy, leaving it in dire straits.
(With inputs from agencies)
