Over the last few weeks, India's COVID-19 case tally has surged alarmingly, threatening to overwhelm the existing healthcare infrastructure and supplies in some parts of the country. Now, even as Chief Ministers hold emergency meetings and areas go back under lockdown, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is hitting out at the Narendra Modi-led government for its handling of the second wave of the pandemic.
In a somewhat harshly worded tweet, Gandhi spoke scathingly about the "Central government's COVID-19 strategy", implying that such a thing did not exist. Step one, he said was to implement a lockdown. Following this, step two as per Gandhi was to "ring bells" and then finally step three involved "singing praises of God".
This is not the Congress MP's only critical tweet over the last few days. Gandhi recently took the opportunity to say 'I told you so' when the Centre fast tracked the approval process for the use of foreign-made COVID-19 vaccines in India. Days earlier, a similar suggestion from him had been met with pointed jibes and derision from Union Ministers and BJP leaders.
"There are no tests, nor beds in the hospital. There are no ventilators, nor oxygen. There is also no vaccine. Just the pretense of a festival. PMCares?" he tweeted on Thursday.
Over the last few weeks, India's active case load has risen sharply with the daily case tally crossing the two lakh mark for the first time ever on Thursday. A similar number of cases on Friday morning has now pushed the total number of active cases to 15,69,743.