Modi says ‘feeling’ his nation’s Covid pain
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said he feels the pain of all Indians battling the pandemic, in a televised address on Friday following weeks of largely avoiding public comment on his country’s devastating coronavirus wave.
The Hindu nationalist leader’s government has been stung by criticism of its handling of the virus, with his address coming as the country of 1.3 billion reported 4,000 deaths for a third straight day and 343,144 new infections.
Many Indians have taken to social media to accuse Modi’s populist right-wing administration of abandoning them as desperate families scramble to find hospital beds, oxygen cylinders and anti-viral medicines.
Opposition Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the Prime Minister had gone “missing” like the oxygen and hospital beds.
But Modi said on Friday that his government was working on a “war-footing” against Covid-19.
“Because of this coronavirus, we have lost people close to us. The pain that our citizens have suffered in recent days, I am feeling it just as much,” he said.
“Whatever obstacles are there we are trying to remove.”
Modi said even the military was working against what he called “an invisible enemy that is always changing shape.”
“India is not going to lose hope. We will fight and win against this virus.”
His comments came as the virus eases in major cities like New Delhi and Mumbai, but India’s rural hinterland, home to two-thirds of the population, is now bearing the brunt.
The northern state of Uttar Pradesh, home to more than 240 million people, has been particularly badly hit.
Residents say deaths are being under-reported and with crematoriums overwhelmed, some bodies have been thrown into rivers, forcing the government on Friday to order police patrols on the Ganges and elsewhere to stop people dumping the dead.