New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi called the Coronavirus induced lockdown 'surreal' while comparing the current situation with the time of World War. He even said that the national lockdown has failed to serve its purpose.
"It's quite surreal. I don't think anyone imagined that the world would be locked down in this way. I don't think even during the world war, the world was lockdown. Even then things were opened. It's a unique and devastating sort of phenomena," said Rahul Gandhi during an online conversation with Industrialist Rajiv Bajaj, on Thursday.
Congress party, on Thursday, released the conversation of industrialist Rajiv Bajaj with Rahul Gandhi. This is the fourth video of the on-going series of Rahul Gandhi's conversation with global experts regarding the impact of COVID-19 on various sectors.
When asked about Congress' opinion over the nation's strategy to fight against COVID-19, Gandhi said, "The response has to be decentralized. Central Government has to operate as a support system and as an enabler. Certain things that the central government needs to do for example Air Traffic, Railways etc. that it does. But then it should move the battle to districts, to Chief Ministers, allows them and enables them to fight."
"If you look at what has happened after the lockdown, which by the way I call a failed lockdown, India is the only country in the world where the disease is increasing after we are opening up. The Central Government has backed off and has said that now we are going to be forced to leave it to the States. So, the correct response is happening organically," he added.
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While mentioning about his previous dialogues with the experts, Gandhi questioned the Central Government's strategy, saying, "We have migrants, we have daily wage labour and for some reason, we look West. Why didn't we look internally for our own solution? Why didn't we instead of looking to the west or to the East, we say that we are actually a confident country, let's look at ourselves and let's come out with an Indian solution? Why was that not the natural impulse?"
He urged the Central Government to have a compassionate response and the urgent need to listen to the stakeholders and the experts.
During the conversation, Rajiv Bajaj questioned the Congress leader to explain the reason behind the Center's decision of not providing money directly into the hands of poor people. Giving a reply to him, Gandhi revealed about his conversation with some Government's officials regarding the mater.
He said, "The response I got was, first, there is a huge opportunity for India with regards to China, second, if we give a hand out to our labour they will get spoilt and won't come back from their villages, third, we might send a wrong message to the international community whom we will need to invest in us, and fourth, later we might consider giving money to these labourers and small-medium businesses."
He also slammed the Government over the matter, saying, "The first logic has to be, defend the economy. If you defend that economy well, you will have an image and you will succeed in inviting whoever you want here. If you don't have any, there is nothing left."
Prior to this, Rahul Gandhi also had a conversation with former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan and Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee regarding the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the economy of our country.
