Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday criticised the Indian government over its lack of preparedness to deal with the coronavirus outbreak. The virus, officially called COVID-19, has infected 30 people in India so far – 15 people, including 14 Italians, tested positive in Delhi, six people in Agra, two Italian tourists in Jaipur, and one each in Delhi, Hyderabad, Ghaziabad and Gurugram.

The highly contagious virus, which originated in Wuhan in China, has spread to over 70 countries. It has infected more than 95,000 people and killed over 3,000 across the world.

Advertisement

“The Health Minister saying that the Indian Govt [government] has the #coronavirus crisis under control, is like the Capt [captain] of the Titanic telling passengers not to panic as his ship was unsinkable,” Gandhi wrote on Twitter. “It’s time the Govt [government] made public an action plan backed by solid resources to tackle this crisis.”

Earlier in the day, Vardhan assured members in Parliament that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was personally monitoring the situation. “A group of ministers has been constituted to keep an eye on the situation,” he said. “Video conferences are being held with states every other day.”

On Tuesday, Gandhi had advised Modi to “quit wasting India’s time playing the clown” with his social media accounts and prepare to fight the coronavirus outbreak. He had also tweeted a video of Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong urging people not to panic over the virus and wrote “here is how it is done”. In another tweet, he had said: “A true leader would be completely focused on averting the massive crisis about to be unleashed by the virus on India and its economy.”

Modi had assured people on Tuesday that there was no need to panic and said they must work together and take “small yet important” measures for self-protection.