COVID-19: Rahul Gandhi accuses PM Modi of shedding crocodile tears on COVID-19 deaths

New Delhi, May 22: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said a crying prime minister is the government of India's response to "the highest Covid deaths" in the country, devoid of vaccines and having the lowest GDP.

Gandhi made the frontal attack against Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the grim pandemic situation in the country, leading two other senior Congress leaders, P Chidambaram and Jairam Ramesh, too to join him in the attack.

"No Vaccines. Lowest GDP. Highest Covid deaths... GOI's response? PMCries," he said in an acerbic tweet on Friday, while also accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of shedding "crocodile tears" while paying homage to the people who died of COVID-19.

"Crocodiles are innocent," said the Congress leader in another tweet, in a dig at Prime Minister Modi turning emotional during his digital interaction with doctors in his Lok Sabha constituency Varanasi on Friday.

On his Twitter handle, Gandhi also shared a chart on the global economic condition and pandemic situation, tweeted by the Union government's former Chief Economic Advisor Kaushik Basu. The chart showed India's GDP at minus eight against 3.8 of Bangladesh, 1.9 of China and O.4 of Pakistan.

In the same chart, India was shown suffering 212 deaths for each million of its population due to COVID-19 against 0.4 deaths in Vietnam and two in China. "Due to the mismanagement of the Modi system, India has the black fungus epidemic along with the Covid pandemic," Gandhi said in yet another tweet, targeting the prime minister.

"Along with the shortage of medicines for Covid, India also has a huge shortage of medicines for this big disease. The prime minister will soon be making a 'taali-thaali' (clapping and beating of plates) announcement to deal with the disease," he said in a tweet in Hindi.

Another Congress leader Jairam Ramesh too attacked the government over the alleged poor pace of anti-Covid vaccination, saying the country needs vaccines, not "crocodile tears".

"Claim -- Jan 2021: Modi Govt will vaccinate 30 cr Indians fully by July end. Reality -- 22nd May: 4.1 cr Indians got both doses. Claim -- 21st May: India will fully vaccinate all adults by the end of 2021. Reality -- 21st May: Only 14 lakh vaccinated whole day," he said on Twitter.

"We need vaccines, not crocodile tears," Ramesh added in his tweet. Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram also cautioned the government saying both the IMF and WHO have cautioned India against the consequences of the slow pace of vaccination.

"The claim of the Union health minister of getting 216 crore vaccine doses by December 31 to vaccinate the entire adult population by that date must be backed by hard data. So far, it is not," he said in a series of tweets.

"We need data on the capacity of domestic producers, orders placed vaccine-wise, import contracts concluded, agreed schedule of delivery etc. Nothing has been disclosed so far," he said in a tweet.

"The final warning to the government is that if vaccination is not accelerated, it will not be possible to prevent a third wave," he said. Chidambaram said the Modi government cannot say "we did not anticipate these consequences".

"The government has been duly forewarned," he said. The Congress has been critical of the government's vaccination policy and slow pace of inoculations.