COVID-19 war shouldn’t be fought out of PMO: Rahul Gandhi

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday (May 8) called for transparency in the Centre’s plan to open the country after the lockdown ends on May 17. He also urged the central government to collaborate with state governments to tackle the COVID-19 crisis.

While addressing a video press conference, Gandhi said it is imperative now that the Centre takes steps towards giving money to the poor, charts out a strategy for migrants and starts preparing for the lifting of the lockdown.

“The central thing that the government needs to do is to bring a little bit of transparency in its actions. We need to understand, when they open, what is the criteria for that, what are the boxes they want ticked off before they actually start to open,” he told reporters.

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He said the lockdown is not a switch that can be turned on and off and rather requires a psychological change in people’s minds to make them confident about their safety.

“Currently the disease is seen as dangerous for people. And it is true. The disease is dangerous for certain groups of people. It is absolutely dangerous for older people, those with diabetes, heart diseases, hypertension and lung infection. But other than that, it is not a dangerous disease. So we need to have to make a psychological impact on people. The government needs to turn it into a sense of confidence in people,” he said.

Gandhi said to bring about such a transition, the Centre has to collaborate with the states as well as district and panchayat level authorities instead of keeping decisions confined to the prime minister’s office (PMO).

“We need decentralisation to fight against the disease. Many states are not getting enough money from the centre for the purpose,” he said.

He said the Centre should collect district level information and design individual strategies for states.

Taking a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Gandhi said the prime minister’s style of working may work for him, but may not work in the current scenario.

“…when the country is facing such an unprecedented crisis, we don’t need just one strong PM…we need many, many strong leaders, strong CMs and strong district magistrates. We need a strong patriotic Indian leader at the panchayat level, district level, state level…we need to tackle the problem and end it at the local level, not at the national level,” he said.

The Congress leader also stressed the need to help migrants and MSMEs with money to boost the economy.

“If we don’t help them today, there will be a tsunami of job losses. It needs a strategy and Congress is ready to help,” he said.

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Gandhi of late has been having discussions with renowned economists, asking them for solutions for the current economic crisis that the country is facing due to the COVID-19 lockdown.

His last guest was Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee who said  that the Centre needs to immediately put cash in the hands of the poor to increase spending, which in turn will help boost the sagging economy.