With lockdown 4.0 slated to end in five days, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said over two months of the nationwide lockdown have failed to achieve its objectives, which is also the reason the prime minister cannot be seen and has become “low key” in his public appearances.

Gandhi demanded to know what the government’s plan was to contain the spread of the coronavirus in the weeks ahead, particularly after the current phase of the lockdown ends on May 31.

He said he feared the pandemic would spread manifold in a “non-lockdown situation”.

The Congress leader reiterated his demand of cash transfers of Rs 7,500 to the poor. He said thousands of small and medium businesses would go bankrupt if the government does not help with an “injection of capital”.

“This is merely the beginning, the veritable first chapter of the losses small and medium businesses will suffer,” he said. Gandhi said the unemployment situation was already bad prior to coronavirus, and has worsened under the lockdown.

He said state governments were fighting a valiant battle against the disease but their efforts were increasingly hamstrung, with the Centre not offering any help.

He said the prime minister has become “low key” in his public appearances, he cannot be seen and has gone on the “back foot” because the lockdown has failed to accomplish its stated target of controlling the spread. “The country needs to see the PM’s face,” Gandhi said, asking the PM to face the country and talk about the path ahead.

Gandhi said not only has the lockdown failed in achieving its objectives, a fact which even the prime minister would concede, but it is being lifted when the infection is spreading.

He said other countries like France had lifted their respective lockdowns when the infection curve was flattening, but India is lifting it when the spread is peaking.

The Congress leader said the Centre’s economic package is of no help, and it was time the government thought about what the country needed and come up with a revised economic package, and not what international rating agencies might think.

On his interaction with migrant workers, Gandhi said there is a sense of hopelessness and despair among them, that they have been left alone and there is none to support them.

“They said hamara bharosa toot gaya (our trust is broken). I don’t like even a single person saying that,” he said. Gandhi said people’s trust should not break. “There is still time for the government to offer succour to them, and the government should,” he said.

On Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s criticism that he was indulging in “dramebaazi” by meeting migrant workers, Gandhi said his intent was to talk to them and understand their problems. He said he will follow the FM’s advice that he should have walked with them carrying their luggage, and he was willing to walk with migrant workers, carrying their bags, to Uttar Pradesh and hoped the government gives him permission.