Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday blamed the Congress for the spread of the coronavirus pandemic in the country during the first wave, saying the party caused chaos by encouraging migrant labourers to defy the lockdown imposed by the government to prevent the disease from spreading.
"Iss Corona kaal me Congress ne toh hadd kar di (Congress exceeded all limits during the coronavirus pandemic)," PM Modi remarked in the Lok Sabha.
During the first wave, when the country was in lockdown and when the WHO was advising everyone to stay wherever they are, the Congress went to the Mumbai railway station to give tickets to labourers to go to UP and Bihar and spread coronavirus. You created chaos, you violated the lockdown norms and pushed migrants into trouble," PM Modi said in the Lok Sabha, terming it "paap (a sin)".
Launching a scathing attack on the Congress, he said, the party continues to remain arrogant even after being repeatedly defeated in the elections in several states.
He pointed that the Congress has not been in power in many states, including West Bengal, Tripura and Tamil Nadu, for consecutive decades now. "These states are still not ready to accept you [Congress]," he said.
"Even after so many defeats, over so many decades, neither has your [Congress party's] arrogance gone nor has your ecosystem let you shed your arrogance," the Prime Minister remarked.
Taking a swipe at the Kejriwal-led AAP, the Prime Minister said, “In Delhi, the government went around slums in jeeps and announced on mics that whoever wants to go home, buses have been arranged. Infections then shot up in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, where the coronavirus had not even spread that much."
Listing the achievements of his government, the Prime Minister further said that if Opposition parties "were connected to the ground", they would have seen how the government's schemes have improved the lives of people with its schemes on housing, water connections and cooking gas cylinders to the poor.
