He cautions govt on migrant workers’ issue, saying it should act quickly or there would be ‘social unrest’

Lockdown is only a ‘pause button’ and not a solution to stop the spread of Coronavirus and the government should adopt aggressive and extensive testing to ‘defeat’ the virus, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi said on Thursday.

In his first virtual press conference, Mr. Gandhi said that though he had many disagreements with the government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, ‘today is not the time to fight with each other but to unite the country and take on the virus’.

To a query if the nature and structure of democracy would change post COVID-19, he said though there was a possibility right now, the priority was to fight the virus and the Congress knew how to keep India democratic.

He cautioned the government on the migrant workers’ issue, saying it should act quickly or there would be ‘social unrest’.

‘Don’t worry’

In the nearly hour-long interaction, he asked people not to worry. “You might be feeling that this is a very scary experience, we have never been locked up in our house, what is going to happen to us. I want you to know that this country is bigger than any disease,” he said.

Mr. Gandhi offered suggestions such as creating a safety net for the poor by offering free rations, putting money into the accounts of the 20 per cent poorest families in India, preparing a survival plan for the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and protecting the interests of strategic industries, among others.

“First thing to understand is that a lockdown is like a pause button, it’s in no way a solution to Coronavirus. When we come out of the lockdown, the virus will start its work again. So, it’s important that we have a strategy to come out of it,” he said. “The biggest weapon to fight the virus is testing.”

Mr. Gandhi pointed out that India right now was testing 199 persons for every one million people or 350 tests per district. “If you have to fight the virus, you have to increase testing dramatically and your testing has to go from chasing the virus to moving ahead of it. That means you have to move into random testing.”

‘Create 2 basic zones’

When asked if he favoured partial lifting of the lockdown, he said, “ It should be a strategic opening. You open particular key areas, use testing to identify and this is where the point of ramping up testing is important. You use testing to identify dynamically which are the hot spots and you clamp down on those hot spots. You create two basic zones in India -a hot spot zone and a non-hot spot zone”.

Besides managing healthcare infrastructure, the economy needed urgent attention as there would be a ‘financial backlash’ because of COVID-19. “You are going to see the first waves of unemployment and then that will start to spiral, you will see massive pressure coming on our financial system.” The government needed to set up structures to manage funding to avoid a financial crisis in a few months, he said.

Funds for States

Mr. Gandhi pointed out that the State governments and district authorities were at the forefront of the battle against the virus and urged the Centre to provide them more funds because “the money given to them right now is nowhere near adequate”.

On migrants getting restive to return to their native place, he said, “There are some people who have suggested moving the migrant people, some people are suggesting don’t move them. Gve them food and assistance where they are. Whichever choice the government chooses, they need to act on it quickly. If they dont act on it quickly social unrest will develop quickly in the country”.