Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to work with the Chief Ministers as a colleague.

“If we speak fairly, the situation we are in today is not a normal situation. So, we can't have a normal solution. We need to decentralise and take it to the district level. Then we will win. If we keep it in the PMO, we will lose the fight. The PM should talk to the CMs more, not as a boss but as a colleague,” he said .

‘Sense of transparency’ 

Addressing the media, he said:

 “In the Congress party, we have been having discussions internally. We are now into a lockdown for 45 days and we are beginning into a bit of problem. There is this feeling that we need to immediately get this package for small and medium businesses, help migrants and exit the lockdown.

“These suggestions are in the spirit of helping the government. The Central government needs to give a sense of transparency about their plan or action. The government needs to tell the people these are the criteria that needs to be ticked off and then this is what we will do.

“This is not the time to criticise and I won’t do it. We need to get out the situation we are in right now. If you ask any businesses, they say our supply lines that run through red, orange and green. But there is a problem there. We need to restore these chains.

“I would urge the Prime Minister to treat the States and district magistrates [DMs] to treat as partners. We have been talking about cash transfers. Migrants need the money now. There are pushes and pulls with regard to the migrant workers. Start implementing NYAY and put it in 50% of the households. It won’t cost much.

“PM Modi has a style and that's alright. But in such a situation, I would want many strong CMs, strong DMs and a strong PM working together. For example, these zones of red, green and orange. Our CMs say what they think is green has been marked red by the Centre. So, there is a mismatch between what the States think and the Centre marks.” 

The Congress Chief Ministers have said they are not getting funds from the Centre, he added.

In a videoconference on May 6, the Chief Ministers of the party-ruled States accused the Union government of taking decisions without consulting the States and not providing them with adequate funds to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.