News Analysis India

Tag: Mallikarjuna Kharge

  • Kharge says govt’s COVID death toll figures ‘false’ and conservative as RS discusses pandemic response

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjuna Kharge said on Tuesday that the government’s COVID-19 death toll figure of 4-5 lakh is “false” and conservative and claimed the average number of deaths cannot be less than 52.4 lakh so far in the country.

    Participating in a short duration discussion on COVID-19 management in the Upper House, the Congress leader alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi “failed” in tackling the pandemic and made former health minister Harsh Vardhan a scapegoat for the “mismanagement” of the health crisis.

    The Congress is ready to cooperate with the government in a crisis of this nature and save the people from suffering, even as the PM has not yet responded to three letters written by the party with various suggestions to address the pandemic, he added.

    The short duration discussion was on the management of COVID-19, implementation of vaccination policy and challenges of the likely third wave. The time allocated for the debate was four hours.

    “The government is releasing fake figures (of COVID-19 death toll) and it is far away from the truth,” Kharge alleged in the Upper House. There are about 6,38,565 lakh villages in the country.

    Even if there were five COVID-19 deaths in a village, the total death toll would have been 31,91,825, he said.

    There are 7,935 urban cities, even if you take 10 deaths in each city, the toll would have been more than 7,93,500. Similarly, there would have been an estimated 3,60,000 deaths in 19 metros, he said.

    “On an average, it comes to 52.43 lakh deaths. It cannot be less than this. Still, they (government) say it is only 4-5 lakh. They keep saying this,” Kharge added.

    As Kharge’s remarks drew angry protests from the treasury benches, senior Congress leader Anand Sharma asked them to listen patiently and allow the debate to take place in the right manner.

    “A serious topic is being discussed. The ruling party should listen patiently. When you speak, we will also listen patiently. This is not the right way of debating,” Sharma said.

    Leader of the House and Union Minister Piyush Goyal urged members not to engage in criticising each other, and instead raise the level of the debate to find solutions for addressing the likely third COVID-19 wave.

    Continuing the debate, Kharge said while the death toll was definitely higher than the government’s estimate, the scenes of bodies thrown in river Ganga depict the kind of suffering people went through during the pandemic.

    “The government failed to tackle the pandemic,” the LoP said, pointing out that it imposed a sudden lockdown in 2020 that affected migrants, impacted the economy and “created unemployment and the problem of inflation.

    There was a shortage of beds, ventilators and oxygen but still the government is saying it has successfully managed the situation, he said on the second wave.

    While other countries were preparing for tackling the second wave, the Modi government was holding elections violating its own COVID-19 protocols, he said.

    Kharge said the PM rather than taking the responsibility for mismanagement made the former Health Minister “a scapegoat for the mismanagement” of the COVID-19.

    “On every issue, the PM does not take responsibility. He makes others a scapegoat,” he alleged, adding that the prime minister asked the people to follow campaigns like lighting ‘diyas’, but in return, he “cheated” them.

    The Congress wrote three letters to the prime minister with various suggestions to tackle the pandemic but no reply came from him, he added.

    Kharge, however, said in times of crisis of this nature, the Congress will cooperate with the government and save the lives of the people.

    Earlier before his speech, Kharge said he felt “hurt and insulted” because his right to debate was snatched away when few members took the entire House for ransom, a reference to a protest by YSR Congress members.

    “You should have created a ground for that. But few people took the entire house for ransom with the same issues which were there three years back. But the government could have solved that. Anyway, I feel hurt and it should not happen in the future to other members,” he said.

    YSR Congress members were protesting demanding special status for Andhra Pradesh and had forced a 15-minute adjournment when the short duration discussion was to be taken up at 1300 hours. Since the House was not in order, Kharge could not initiate the debate.

    But the Chair called other members to speak and Swapandas Gupta (nominated) shared his views on the pandemic.

    India recorded 30,093 new coronavirus infections in a day, the lowest in 125 days, taking the total tally of COVID-19 cases to 3,11,74,322, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Tuesday.

    The death toll climbed to 4,14,482 with 374 more fatalities in a day, the lowest in 111 days, while the active cases have declined to 4,06,130, the lowest in 117 days.

  • INTERVIEW| PM Modi needs to talk about ‘Kaam ki baat’: Congress leader Mallikarjuna Kharge

    Express News Service
    BENGALURU: Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjuna Kharge speaks about the Central government faltering on the COVID front and why doles are necessary to the poor at this time:

    On March 17, 2021, in a COVID review meeting with Chief Ministers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had warned about the second wave in India, when we had only 30,000 new cases per day. Despite this, did the Centre falter on planning?

    Yes, they failed to plan and organise themselves. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and myself have written letters offering suggestions, but instead of taking suggestions, they have criticised us.

    A man whose abilities as a doctor are suspect, replied to Manmohan Singh, someone else replied to me, nobody replied to Mrs Sonia Gandhi. Let us remember the Congress got 11 crore votes, while they got 19 crore votes, and they are not interested in our suggestions. There is no scope for discussion in this government.

    There is a serious vaccine shortage, they announce vaccines for 18-45 age group, but are not able to achieve it, they are unable to provide second dose of vaccine for the 45-60 age category, there is severe shortage of medicines, ICU beds, and thousands are dying.

    Instead of Mann ki Baat, the PM needs to talk about ‘Kaam ki baat’. It is loud and clear that they faltered on planning, and what’s worse, they are too arrogant to listen to anyone, as the replies to our letters indicate.

    The Congress has said people should be given Rs 10,000. Isn’t this a burden on the exchequer?

    Should people die of starvation? Is money more important than people? Should you save money or people? I would say we should give money to the poor and marginalised to tide over this crisis, because many have lost their livelihood and jobs, especially daily wage labourers.

    We have our trained workforce, the government has invested so much to train them as doctors and engineers, what happens if they die because there are no jobs? Isn’t it a loss for the nation? Look at the condition of migrant workers. There has to be some provision to help the poor.

    There has been an uproar over Youth Congress National President BV Srinivas, who was questioned by Delhi Police.

    Srinivas was doing an excellent job, serving people during the COVID crisis. The government will not tolerate that. It is Youth Congress volunteers who are working on the direction of former party president Rahul Gandhi.

    They are trying to stop our volunteers and demoralise them. They want to know who has given the money and resources for oxygen and other help we are providing. Now some donors prefer to remain anonymous, this is an effort to expose them and try to embarrass them.

    There have been complaints that NGOs have been stopped from distributing oxygen concentrators…

    In any crisis, everyone steps in to help. While the government has not done its bit, it doesn’t want others to help either. They are concerned that NGOs should not take the credit for help received by people.

    Your party has said it will chip in with Rs 100 crore?

    Yes, our MLAs will offer this amount from Local Area Development grants. Each MLA is entitled to spend a certain sum of money for development, and they are putting together this amount from those funds.

    At the Working Committee meeting, Sonia Gandhi asked Congressmen to do this. These are difficult days and we need to do our bit to help.

    What would you have done differently if your government was in power?

    Our party has a consultative democratic process. Because we consulted so much, some criticised our government as weak. We inherently believe in participation of all, we are not dictatorial. There was an interesting article recently about what Nehru would have done in this situation.

    Remember we took everyone along. In 1971, because of the war, Indira Gandhi was praised by BJP leader Atal Behari Vajpayee simply because everyone was consulted and united in tackling problems.