99 per cent people in India safe from virus, govt must remove fear among people: Rahul Gandhi

NEW DELHI, May 8, 2020, India Today. Rahul Gandhi, Indian politician who was the President of the Indian National Congress in 2017-2019, speaks to reporters in a live video conference on the coronavirus situation and ongoing lockdown. Asked about his well-being, Rahul Gandhi says, “I am not doing good, but okay,” India Today reported.

Rahul Gandhi says, “The Govt needs to have transparency with its actions before it starts to open the lockdown. This lockdown in not switching on and off a key. We have to make a psychological change in the mindset of people. Opening up is a transition and the Govt needs to have a strategy to do it. It will require coordination between state govts and Centre and local administration. View state governments as partners, do not centralise decisions.”

Rahul Gandhi says, “The Centre must immediately transfer Rs 65,000 crore into the bank accounts of poor and migrant population to give them financial support in these difficult times. There has to be a conversation between states and Centre to oversee this.”

Rahul Gandhi says, “Only 1% of Indians are at the highest risk of coronavirus but 99% of the people are not at risk. First thing the govt must do is to remove fear of the virus from the minds of the people. Only then will opening the lockdown help. Even if you open up everything, fear will make people stay at home.”

Rahul Gandhi says, “We must tell people the reality. This disease is fatal for only 1% of the population not the rest of the healthy population of India. We must remove fear among the population orelese the lockdown will never be removed.”