JOIN USManmohan Singh to lead Congress consultative group on COVID-19
Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will lead the Congress’ 11-member consultative group on matters related to the Covid-19 outbreak, the party announced on Saturday.
The setting up of the consultative group by Congress president Sonia Gandhi also marked Rahul Gandhi’s formal return to the decision making process in party affairs, which he had publicly avoided since his resignation as Congress president in August last year owning responsibility for the Lok Sabha poll debacle.
The setting up of the consultative group also comes against the backdrop of a controversy over the Congress president’s suggestion to Prime Minister Narendra Modi about a complete ban on government advertisements to the print and electronic media which was roundly criticised by media
Besides Singh and Rahul, the 11-member group comprises senior leaders such as P Chidambaram, Jairam Ramesh, KC Venugopal, Manish Tewari, Randeep Singh Surjewala, Praveen Chakravarty, Gourav Vallabh, Rohan Gupta and Supriya Shrinate.
In a press release, Venugopal said the group will meet virtually every day to discuss the current issues and formulate the party’s stand on those.
Congress has been critical of the Modi government’s response to tackling the Covid-19 outbreak, flagging issues of testing for the disease, the sudden announcement of the lockdown, the plight of the migrant workers and the farm sector.
Both the Congress president and Rahul have written letters to the prime minister offering suggestions to tackle the Covid-19 outbreak.
Addressing a press conference on Thursday, Rahul has said the lockdown was a pause button and not a solution to fight the Covid-19 outbreak and stressed on the need to have a comprehensive exit strategy to ensure that the virus does not spread once the restrictions are lifted on May 3.