COVID-19 crisis: Rahul Gandhi slams Centre over state of economy, blames PM Modi & team

On Tuesday, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi lashed out at the Centre for its handling of the economic situation amid the COVID-19 crisis. He opined that people's trust in the economy has evaporated. Moreover, Gandhi alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his team lacked the tools and ability to fix the problem. According to him, every Indian would eventually understand this reality. 

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Gandhi was reacting to an article written by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress office-bearer Praveen Chakravarthy. In the article, they noted that India has been impacted economically due to the COVID-19 crisis. They stressed that the foundation to revive the economy is by injecting confidence in the entire ecosystem. Backing the idea of direct cash assistance to the poor people, the Congress leaders reckoned that this move can help them weather the novel coronavirus crisis.

Moreover, they called upon the Centre to allow institutions such as public sector banks, RBI, bankruptcy boards and securities and insurance regulators to function freely and professionally. The ex-PM and Chakravarthy observed that this was the foundational step to restore confidence in the financial system. Thereafter, they urged the Union government to borrow money via loan programmes of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. 

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COVID-19 crisis in India

Currently, there are 5,86,298 active cases in India while 12,30,509 patients have been discharged and 38,938 fatalities have been reported. Addressing the media earlier in the day, ICMR Director-General Dr.Balram Bhargava noted that India has conducted more than 2 crore tests so far with 6.6 lakh samples being tested for the novel coronavirus on Monday. He explained that the country was following a policy of intelligent and calibrated testing. Lauding the state governments for providing cooperation in COVID-19 testing, Dr.Bhargava revealed that they had been asked to conduct 10 lakh tests per day. 

Dr.Bhargava said, "It has been more than 6 months since we did the diagnosis of the very first case. We have completed more than 2 crore tests since then. We have been able to establish a large number of laboratories and yesterday, we did about 6.6 lakh tests. We have been following a policy of intelligent and calibrated testing."

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