Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi shared a set of graphs on Friday to depict what a “failed lockdown” looks like, while his party charged that the Narendra Modi government was only “manufacturing slogans” to divert people’s attention from the problems arising out of the COVID-19 pandemic .
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In a twitter post, Mr. Gandhi compared India with countries like Spain, Germany, the U.K. and Italy post lock down.
“This is what a failed lockdown looks like,” said Mr. Gandhi in the tweet that displayed graphs that showed cases in India shooting up massively post four stages of lockdown, while the European countries registered a decline.
At the Congress party’s online press conference, former Law minister Kapil Sibal questioned the Prime Minister’s call for Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan (Self Reliance campaign) and the ₹20 lakh crore financial package.
“We are only manufacturing rhetoric, statements and slogans. That is the only thing we make in India and we are masters at that under this government,” Mr. Sibal told reporters.
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He said both the self reliance campaign as well as financial package are jumlas (empty rhetoric).
“This is an act of self-deception. This is another jumla that you sell to the people of the country,” he said.
The former Minister asked how can India become self-reliant until it created innovation and intellectual property in its universities. India’s spending on Research and Development was among the lowest, he asserted.
Mr. Sibal said that while the Prime Minister called for Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan, his government had failed to help the farmers, the migrant workers, the industry and even State government become self-reliant.
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“How will you become Atmanirbhar? All your policies today are benefiting international players. I am not against it, but if you want to make it self-reliant in the near future, give us the policy,” Mr Sibal said.
He said the ₹20 lakh crore Atmanirbhar package will not lead to expansion of government expenditure as it included measures already announced by the RBI and in the budget and amounts to less than 1 per cent of the GDP.
“The reality is that Modi’s ‘Atmanirbhar’ idea is merely a slogan like innumerable others,” Mr. Sibal said.
