Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meetings with Chief Ministers on Tuesday and Wednesday to decide the roadmap for India’s future COVID-19 strategy, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Monday targeted the government over the previous stages of lockdown.
Mr. Gandhi took to Twitter and quoted scientist Albert Einstein to attack the government. “This lock down proves that: “The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance.” Albert Einstein,” the former Congress chief tweeted and tagged a video graphic that claimed the lockdown flattened the wrong curve.
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Using retail activity as a ‘proxy for the economy,’ the graph showed the economy going from zero in Lockdown 1 to almost -90 (on a scale of 0 to -100) between Lockdown 2 and 3.
On the other hand, the COVID-19 infections grew from 100s in the first week of March to 1,000s.
From initially supporting the nationwide lockdown, the Congress changed its position and described the measure as being a case of ‘the cure being worse than the disease.’
The Congress had been particularly critical of the Modi government’s handling of the migrant workers’ issue and the government’s refusal to go for direct cash transfer into the Jan Dhan Accounts of the poor.
Last week, Mr. Gandhi shared a similar graph and claimed how India was about to win the ‘wrong race’.
‘India is firmly on its way to winning the wrong race. A horrific tragedy, resulting from a lethal blend of arrogance and incompetence,” Mr. Gandhi tweeted last Friday with the graph that mapped India’s rise in COVID-19 cases.
The video graphics showed that on March 22 – three days before the nationwide lockdown was announced – India was at the bottom of the list but rose to the number four position on June 12, behind the U.S., Brazil and Russia.
The graph also showed India had overtaken Italy, Spain, Iran and United Kingdom, which initially saw a high number of cases.
