Lockdown a death sentence for India’s unorganised sector, says Rahul Gandhi

Continuing his attack on PM Narendra Modi over the country’s economic condition, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said, “’Sudden’ nationwide lockdown to check the spread of the coronavirus has played a crucial role in destroying Indian economy.”

In a video message shared on his Twitter profile, Rahul Gandhi said that the government must introduce a “NYAY-like scheme” a minimum wage social welfare scheme proposed by the Congress in its 2019 election manifesto.

In the fourth and last video of his series, he said, “The poor, those in small and medium businesses, are daily wage earners. They eat with what they earn each day. When you (PM Modi) announced a lockdown without notice, you attacked them. The Prime Minister said the fight will be for 21 days, the backbone of the unorganised sector broke in 21 days.’’

 While talking about migrant labours, former Congress president said, ‘over 97 lakh migrant workers were ‘sent home’,

He also shared estimates of youth unemployment and closure of small and medium-sized businesses.

‘Money needs to be directly deposited in bank accounts.’ he said.

“We suggested that for small and medium businesses, you should prepare a package. Instead, the government waived off taxes worth lakhs of crores of the richest fifteen-twenty people,” he added.

In the video titled ‘Lockdown ki Baat’, Gandhi, termed lockdown as Modi’s ‘disaster plan’ and said that it proved to be a ‘Death Sentence’ for the unorganised sector.’

He also stressed the lockdown wasn’t an attack on the coronavirus but the poor people of the country, the future of the youth, SMEs, and unorganised economy’.

 In his earlier videos, Rahul mentioned about the state of the economy, and how demonetisation and faulty implementation of GST played a big role in destroying the unorganised economy of the country.