National

Amit Shah talks on containing COVID-19, lambastes Gandhi family

Pratidin Bureau

In an interview with a news agency on Sunday, Amit Shah said significant steps have been taken to contain further spread of coronavirus and made a scathing attack on the Gandhi family and the Congress.

Commenting on the fight against COVID-19, Shah said India has been fighting well against COVID-19 and the figures are much better compared to the world, "Under PM Modi's leadership, India is going to win both the wars. The government fought well against coronavirus," adding "I can't advise Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, that's the job of his party leaders, some people are "vakradrashti" (hostile view) — they see wrong even in right things".

Lashing out at Rahul Gandhi's tweets especially the 'Surender Modi' jibe, Shah said, "We are capable of handling anti-India propaganda but it's painful when the former president of a big party (Rahul Gandhi) does shallow politics during a crisis. It is a matter of introspection for him and his party that their hashtag is being encouraged by Pakistan and China".

Shah making observations on his emergency tweets struck at the Congress, "After Indira Gandhi, was there any Congress president from outside the Gandhi family? What democracy do they talk of? I didn't do any politics during COVID-19," asserting, "You can look at my tweets of the past 10 years, every June 25, I give a statement. Emergency should be remembered by people as it attacked the roots of our democracy. No political worker or citizen should forget. There should be awareness of it".

The union minister talking about the migrant workers' plight, claimed, since lockdown began, both PM Modi and Shah spoke to all chief ministers and told them to make shelter and food arrangements for migrants. Arrangements were made for around 2.5 crore people. About Rs, 11,000 crores from the National Disaster Relief Fund was transferred to the states. It was ensured that hospitals and quarantine centres were operational in the receiving states. Soon after, the PM decided to run 'Shramik Special' train services, and till now, around 63 lakh migrants have travelled by 4,594 trains.

Shah said, "When people lost patience and started travelling on foot, we were also pained by it. The PM had told all chief ministers to run buses to ferry migrants travelling on foot to the nearest railway stations. Till now, around 1.20 crore people have been ferried to their home states".

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