People have to save own lives because PM is busy with peacock, tweets Rahul

As the Parliament session got under way, Rahul Gandhi was back with his barbs at government handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. This time the Congress leader targeted Prime Minister Modi, saying “people have to save their own lives because the PM is busy with peacock.”

 

Rahul was referring to a widely publicised video clip of Modi feeding a peacock at his Lok Kalyan Marg residence in Delhi.

 

“India’s coronavirus cases will cross 50 lakh this week and active cases will cross 10 lakh. Unplanned lockdown was the gift of one man’s ego, which led to the spread of coronavirus across the country. Modi government said ‘be self-reliant (atmanirbhar)’… which meant ‘save your own lives’ because the Prime Minister is busy with peacock,” tweeted Rahul, who is an MP from Kerala’s Wayanad.

 

Mr. Gandhi, who is skipping the first part of Parliament’s monsoon session that began on Monday, has often said the government’s unplanned coronavirus lockdown led to loss of lives and left thousands of people jobless.

 

Two days back the Congress leader took a dig at the government, saying its “well-planned fight” against coronavirus has allegedly put India in an “abyss” of GDP reduction of 24%, 12 crore job losses, 15.5 lakh crore additional stressed loans and globally highest daily COVID-19 cases and deaths.

 

The government has not cared much for his criticism. Union minister Prakash Javadekar had earlier mocked him for his “daily” tweets. “Rahul Gandhi is tweeting on a daily basis. It seems the Congress will become a party of tweets as they are doing no work among the people and losing one leader after another. A frustrated and depressed party is trying to launch all sorts of attacks on the government,” Javadekar had said.

India’s coronavirus cases have crossed the 48 lakh-mark with 92,071 new cases reported in the last 24 hours and 1,136 COVID-linked deaths, as per the government data.

Rahul’s remarks came as the Congress moved adjournment motion over Chinese incursion in Ladakh.

The Parliament session resumed on Monday amid reports that 200 out of 785 MPs above 65 years of age, at least seven Union ministers and two dozen lawmakers are recovering from COVID-19.