Coronavirus not deadly, fight shouldn't be restricted to PMO: Rahul
On Friday, former Congress President Rahul Gandhi addressed the press giving plenty of suggestions to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Centre on how to battle the coronavirus pandemic. Asking the BJP-led Centre to be more transparent in terms of an exit plan of the lockdown, Rahul said, "The lockdown is not a key, that you switch it on and it's gone." Here's more.
In a live video chat with media persons, Rahul said there's a need to dispel fears about coronavirus. "Coronavirus is fatal for only 1% of India's population while the rest 99% is not at risk of dying. This is the healthy population and coronavirus is not fatal for them. This reality of the virus needs to be conveyed to the people," he said.
Rahul said the government and other bodies need to break myths surrounding the COVID-19 disease. "PM Modi and all of us should work towards removing this fear otherwise people will not come out even if we exit the lockdown. This is a must for the revival of the economy at this stage," he said. Over 56,000 have been infected with the virus in India.
Though Rahul said now wasn't the time to criticize Centre, he noted that the fight can't be restricted to Prime Minister's Office. The country doesn't only need a strong PM but strong CMs too. "We need a strong patriotic Indian leader at the panchayat level, district level, state level... we need to tackle the problem and finish it at a local level," he said.
According to Rahul, the division of green, red, and orange zones should have been done at the local level, not national. "There is so much information that may be available to DMs at a district level, which may not be available nationally... instead of waiting for information to reach the national level and then travel back, we need to save time," he said.
Rahul called for cash transfer into accounts of less privileged, saying that a continuous lockdown has robbed them of many things. "The Centre must immediately transfer Rs. 65,000 crore into the bank accounts of the poor and migrant population to give them financial support in these difficult times. There has to be a conversation between states and Centre to oversee this," he went on.
"We are in a state of emergency. The idea that we can let our job creators drown is not feasible. We have to build a wall for them so that they can fight. We have to build financial support from them," he added.
Recently, Rahul spoke to former RBI Chairman Raghuram Rajan and Nobel Prize winner Abhijit Banerjee on what is next for the economy. "I speak to a lot of people. A lot of conversations are interesting. I thought I would like to give a glimpse of these conversations to the people of India. There is no other strategy," the parliamentarian from Wayanad said.
