Reiterating his earlier stand that the nationwide lockdown announced by the Narendra Modi government to contain COVID-19 pandemic was a failure, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday shared the disease graphs of India and a few other countries on Twitter to buttress his claims.
Gandhi shared the graphs of Spain, Germany, Italy and the UK, which had shown a decline in COVID-19 cases after the lockdown. The graph of India, however, showed a consistent increase in the number of cases even as the country had started relaxing the restrictions.
“This is what a failed lockdown looks like,” he wrote on Twitter. Gandhi had earlier said that India was the only country which relaxed the lockdown when the COVID-19 cases were still on the rise.
This is what a failed lockdown looks like. pic.twitter.com/eGXpNL6Zhl
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) June 5, 2020
There has been a steady rise in the number of cases ever since India started relaxing the lockdown norms on June 1. On Friday, the country saw a record single-day jump of 9,851 cases and 273 deaths, taking the total number of cases to 2,26,770 and death toll to 6,348.
The government imposed the nation-wide lockdown on March 25 and extended it several times before announcing a staggered exit from June 1.
Gandhi has been a staunch critic of the Modi government’s measures and decisions to contain the pandemic. On May 26, he had cautioned the government of ‘devastation and a second wave of infection if it (lockdown) opens up haphazardly’.
“We are the only country in the world where the virus is rising exponentially and we are removing a lockdown. So, it is pretty clear that the aim and the purpose of the lockdown has failed,” he had said.