Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday asked party office-bearers to launch a massive public outreach programme to create awareness about the shocking failures of the Narendra Modi government in Covid management apart from other issues such as abnormally high prices of essential commodities and petroleum products.

Lamenting that the Covid-induced restrictions didn’t allow political activities for a long time, she said a detailed action plan was being prepared to expose the government that had caused unbearable miseries to the people. She laid special emphasis on vaccination to save people from a third wave of Covid-19, arguing that the daily coverage rate had to be dramatically expanded to meet the year-end target.

Addressing the office-bearers through videoconference, Sonia said: “At the national level, the daily rate of vaccination has to treble so that 75 per cent of our population gets fully vaccinated by the end of this year. No doubt this is dependent entirely on the adequacy of vaccine supply. We must continue to put pressure on the Union government, which has, at our party’s insistence, finally taken on the responsibility for this. At the same time, we have to ensure that registration takes place, vaccine hesitancy wherever evident is overcome and vaccine wastage is minimised.”

Pointing out that adequate steps need to be taken to meet the challenges of the third wave, Sonia said: “The second wave has been devastating for lakhs and lakhs of families all over the country. We must learn from this traumatic experience so that we do not have to experience it yet again.”

Referring to the price rise, Sonia said it was taking place “at a time when livelihoods are being lost in unprecedented numbers, when there is mounting unemployment and when economic recovery is not a reality”.