Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday asked the government why "large-scale testing is not being done" to check and prevent the spread of the Delta plus variant of coronavirus, and how effective are the vaccines against it.

Many experts feel that the Delta plus variant, which has been declared as a 'variant of concern' by the Union health ministry, may trigger the third wave of Covid-19 infections in the country.

"Questions to the Modi government on Delta plus variant: Why is testing not being done on a large scale to check and prevent it? How effective are the vaccines against it and when will complete information be available? What is the plan to control it in the third wave of the virus," he posed in a tweet in Hindi.

Rahul's comments come just a day after Congress interim resident Sonia Gandhi 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.

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.”

India was hit severely by a brutal second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in April and May, claiming a massive number of lives daily, with a shortage in oxygen supply at various hospitals adding to the woes.

However, the number of cases have shown a downward trend and the positivity rate too has been shrinking in the last several days. From a daily case count of over 4 lakh, the number of new Covid-19 cases has been hovering around 50,000 in the last couple of days.