Rahul Gandhi avers nationwide lockdown 'inevitable' amid COVID-19 surge, beseeches PM Modi

Writing to PM Modi on Friday, ex-Congress president Rahul Gandhi opined that a nationwide lockdown is "inevitable" owing to the Centre's failure on the COVID-19 front. In the last 24 hours, India recorded 4,14,188 new novel coronavirus cases and 3915 deaths. He urged the PM to do everything possible to stop the "needless suffering" that the people are going through. Maintaining that the uncontrollable spread of COVID-19 in India will be devastating for the rest of the world, he assured his party's complete support in the fight against COVID-19.

Weighing in on the lockdown strategy in his letter, Rahul Gandhi stated, "In light of this, it is critical that our people are prepared for such an eventuality. To prevent a repeat of the manifold suffering caused by last year's lockdown, the government must act with compassion and provide critical financial and food support to our most vulnerable people. In addition, it must be ready with a transportation strategy for those who will require it." 

Here are Rahul Gandhi's suggestions:

• Scientifically track the virus and its mutations across the country using genome sequencing as well as its disease patterns

• Dynamically assess the efficacy of all vaccines against all new mutations as they are identified

• Rapidly vaccinate our entire population

• Be transparent and keep the rest of the world informed about our findings

PM argues against lockdown

At present, there are 36,45,164 active novel coronavirus cases in India while 1,76,12,351 patients have been discharged and 2,34,083 deaths have been reported. Addressing the people of the nation on the COVID-19 situation on April 20, PM Modi requested the state governments to use lockdown only as a last resort. Stressing the need to "save" India from a lockdown, he opined that the focus should be on micro containment zones instead. At the same time, he appealed to the youths to ensure that their family members avoid stepping out of the house without any valid reason.

"We have to save the country from a lockdown. I would also urge the state governments to use lockdown as a last resort. All efforts should be taken to prevent a lockdown. The focus should be solely on micro-containment zones. We will improve the health of our economy as well as take care of the health of citizens," PM Modi stated.