Congress leader Rahul on Friday said a strategy needs to be devised to open the lockdown placed to curb the spread of coronavirus and added that transparency is needed in Central government’s actions in this regard. Gandhi also urged the BJP-led Centre to view state governments as partners in this process. “The central thing that the government needs to do now is to give a little bit of transparency on its actions. We need to understand when they open (when the lockdown is removed), what will be the criteria for its opening? What are the boxes that they want checked off before they start to open,” said Rahul Gandhi during a press conference held via video conference. “It is important that the government tells the people of India that these are the criteria that we are going to be using and if these criteria are met then we are going to open,” he added. Adding that we cannot continue without providing support to people who are suffering as a result of the lockdown, he said, “Currently, the people are very scared of this disease, so we are going to have to make psychological changes in the minds of the people, the government, if it wants to open up, it has to turn this fear into a sense of confidence.” The Wayanad lawmaker also said it is not the time for criticism and remarked that the Red, Orange and Green zones – classified on the basis of the number of COVID-19 cases – should be decided at state levels involving District Magistrates. At present, the central government is responsible for the demarcation with Red Zones being the areas with highest risk. “This is not the time to criticise, we need a strategy to open the lockdown. Any businessman will tell you that there is a clash between economic supply chain and ‘red, orange and green zones’, that need to be resolved,” Gandhi said. Earlier, Gandhi had also held discussions with Nobel Laureate, Abhijit Banerjee and former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan on the economic fall out of the COVID-19 crisis.
