Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi on Saturday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of putting politics and propaganda ahead of Indian’s wellbeing, as she launched a series of attacks against the government over its handling of the second wave of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic. Priyanka Gandhi’s harsh criticism of the Prime Minister was a part of her ‘Zimmedaar Kaun?’ (Who is responsible?) campaign where she said that during the crisis PM Modi’s ‘incompetence at governance’ was on display.
भारत के प्रधानमंत्री ने कायरों सा बर्ताव किया।
उन्होंने 139 करोड़ लोगों को मंझधार में छोड़ देश का भरोसा तोड़ दिया।
हिन्दुस्तानियों की जिंदगी से ज्यादा उनके लिए राजनीति मायने रखती है।
सच्चाई से ज्यादा उनका सरोकार प्रोपागैंडा है।
अब वक्त आ गया है कि हम पूछें – #ZimmedarKaun pic.twitter.com/DxRuZL4hUT— Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (@priyankagandhi) June 12, 2021
“He (the prime minister) simply retreated and waited for the worst to pass. The Prime Minister of India has behaved like a coward. He has let our country down,” Priyanka Gandhi said in a statement which she posted on her Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts.
“Indians do not come first for him. Politics does. Truth does not concern him, propaganda does,” the Congress leader alleged and urged people to question the government over its handling of the crisis.
Priyanka also said that PM Modi concentrated on building image when he decided to export vaccines to other countries and did not bother to think about his own countrymen. She also said that the vaccine registration platform is ‘convoluted’ and ‘designed to slow down the vaccination process’ in her statement.
“Instead of distributing free vaccines across the world to boost his own image, had he paused for a moment and protected his countrymen first, the people would not be standing in line today grappling with a convoluted registration system designed to slow down the vaccine process,” Priyanka said.
In her two-page statement, the Congress leader also alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi chose not to listen to the recommendations of the Empowered Group, which was set up by his own government to tackle the pandemic and also ignored the recommendations of the parliamentary committee on health. Priyanka also said that from the beginning of the pandemic the Modi-led government avoided taking responsibility and hid the truth.
“As a consequence, when the second wave hit us with unprecedented force, the government lapsed into a state of inaction. This inaction enabled the virus to spread with far greater ferocity and cause untold suffering,” she further added
Priyanka Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi along with other senior leaders, including former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, have been very critical of the government’s handling of Covid-19, especially when cases and deaths rose during the second wave. Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi on separate occasions have also written to the Prime Minister providing suggestions and urging him to implement those. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in turn has accused the Congress of politicising the pandemic and using it as a ‘tool’ to malign the image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
