Take care of yourself as Centre busy with sales, says Rahul Gandhi amid COVID-19 surge

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi expressed worry over the spike in coronavirus cases and stressed on increasing the pace of vaccination against COVID-19.

File Photo

New Delhi: As India reported a rise of 22.7% in daily COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Thursday (August 26) made a two-pronged attack on the Centre. 

Gandhi took to Twitter and expressed worry over the spike in coronavirus cases and stressed on increasing the pace of vaccination against COVID-19. “Rising #COVID numbers are worrying. Vaccination must pick up pace to avoid serious outcomes in the next wave,” the Congress leader tweeted. 

Rising #COVID numbers are worrying. Vaccination must pick up pace to avoid serious outcomes in the next wave.

Please take care of yourselves because GOI is busy with sales. — Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) August 26, 2021

Attacking the Narendra Modi-led Central government on the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) policy, Gandhi added, “Please take care of yourselves because GOI is busy with sales.”

India logged 46,164 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, pushing the caseload to 3,25,58,530. With 607 fatalities, the death toll mounted to 4,36,365, as per Union Health Ministry data on Thursday. India's active cases rose to 3,33,725 in 24 hours, comprising 1.03% of the total infection count. The daily positivity rate was recorded at 2.58%, while the weekly positivity rate was logged at 2.02%.

Meanwhile, Gandhi on Wednesday slammed the Centre over the monetisation scheme and accused the government of putting “India on sale". The former Congress chief tweeted, “First they sold faith and now #IndiaOnSale." On Monday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman unveiled a Rs 6 lakh crore National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) that included unlocking value by involving private companies across infrastructure sectors -- from passenger trains and railway stations to airports, roads and stadiums.

The government plans to monetise assets-- including 25 Airports Authority of India (AAI) airports, those at Chennai, Bhopal, Varanasi and Vadodara, as well as 40 railway stations, 15 railway stadiums and an unidentified number of railway colonies have been identified for getting private investments-- over a four-year period, from Financial Year 2022 to Financial Year 2025.