Govt must empathise with the people: Sonia

NEW DELHI: Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday demanded an all-party meeting on the Covid-19 pandemic, accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of failing the people of India, and announced that the Congress will would enhance its relief activities, even as party leader Rahul Gandhi wrote to the PM that the Centre’s failures at managing the pandemic’s second wave have made another “devastating national lockdown almost inevitable”.

“Let us be absolutely clear – the system hasn’t failed. The Modi government has been unable to constructively channelise India’s many strengths and resources. I say this categorically -- India is crippled by a political leadership today that has no empathy for the people. The Modi government has failed the people of our country,” Sonia Gandhi said in the Congress Parliamentary Party meeting.

Rahul Gandhi too, in a letter to the Prime Minister on Friday, cautioned against the “uncontrollable spread” of this virus and offered suggestions to slow its spread.

At the meeting on Friday, the Congress chief also spoke about the party’s “disappointing” performance in the recent assembly elections, adding that it was”unexpectedly so”.