Rahul Gandhi releases report on Covid-19, says aim not to 'point fingers' at govt

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday released a report on what he said was the 'mismanagement' of coronavirus pandemic by the government and said it was not to blame the ruling dispensation. "The aim of this white paper on Covid-19 is not finger-pointing at the government but to help the nation prepare for the third wave of infection. The whole country knows that a third wave will strike," Gandhi said in a virtual press conference as he released the report.

Rahul Gandhi:

Rahul Gandhi, who has been a vocal critic of the Centre over its handling of the pandemic, also asked the government to create a financial assistance fund and demanded that a commission should be formed to loop into the lapses in tackling Covid-19 in the country. "The government must not view states as BJP states vs opposition states. Very important that bias should not come in," Gandhi added.

Gandhi said that there are two types of Covid-19 death. "One is needless death or those who could have been saved. In the second wave, 90% of the deaths were needless," he stated.

Commenting on India administering record 8.6 million Covid-19 doses on Day 1 of universal Covid vaccine drive, Gandhi said, "Good work has happened yesterday. But it is not a series of events, this is a process."

The revised universal Covid-19 immunisation policy started on June 1, where the Centre is procuring and supplying 75% of the total vaccine supplies being produced in India for free to states for immunising all adults

The Centre also launched the universal vaccination programme against Covid-19 from Monday to provide states with free vaccines for the 18-45 category, a move that is expected to help scale up daily Covid-19 vaccination numbers.

The Congress has accused the central government of suppressing Covid-19 death numbers, with Gandhi saying that the numbers do not lie. "Numbers don't lie... GOI (Government of India) does," Gandhi said on Twitter while citing a New York Times' estimate of the number of Covid-19 deaths in India.

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