With a draconian but porous lockdown, India flattened GDP curve instead of COVID-19: Bajaj Auto MD

With the “draconian” lockdown to fight COVID-19, India ended up flattening the GDP curve instead of the infection curve, Bajaj Auto Managing Director Rajiv Bajaj told Rahul Gandhi.

Bajaj, known for his blunt views on issues, said India looked up to western countries such as Italy, France, UK and the US and used their benchmarks to formulate the Indian response to COVID-19 instead of Japan or Sweden which focused on sanitation, personal hygiene such as wearing masks and physical distancing.

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“I think, India not only looked west, but it also went to the wild west. We tried to implement a hard lockdown, which was still porous. We have ended up with the worst of both the worlds … the virus still exists.. you have not solved that problem,” Bajaj said in an interaction with the former Congress President.

“But, you have decimated the economy. You flattened the wrong curve. It is not the infection curve. It is the GDP curve,” he said.

Bajaj also said the manner in which India was emerging from the lockdown was not smooth, concerted or rhythmic, primarily due to the fear that was created about COVID-19 suggesting that infection was equivalent to death.

He wanted Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take the lead in removing this fear from the minds of people by telling them that nobody was dying because of the infection.

“There has to be a very clear aligned narrative, I would say from the Prime Minister, because, right or wrong, when he says something people seem to follow,” Bajaj said.

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“I think he (PM) needs to stand up and say to everyone that this is how we are going to move forward, it’s is all under control, do not fear infections, almost nobody is dying, you know and we have to move forward now,” the Bajaj scion said.

This was Rahul’s fourth interaction with opinion makers that the Congress has released in a bid to present its former president as an alternative to Modi yet again