Rahul Gandhi on Sunday suspended his election campaign in Bengal a few days after Congress president Sonia Gandhi wondered if political rallies should be cancelled in the wake of the menacing rise in Covid-19 infections.
Late on Sunday night, the Trinamul Congress said chief minister Mamata Banerjee would restrict her campaign in Calcutta to one day on April 26.
“Mamata Banerjee will not campaign in Kolkata anymore. Only one ‘symbolic’ meeting on the last day of campaigning in the city on April 26. Slashes time for all her election rallies in all districts. Restricted to just 30 minutes,” Trinamul leader in the Rajya Sabha Derek O’Brien tweeted on Sunday night.
Mamata told a TV channel: “Yes, we (Trinamul) have decided to hold small meetings, street corner-type ones, in the city in the campaigning for next three phases. We will not hold any big gathering any more. Also, my speeches in the meetings addressed by me will be much shorter.”
Earlier in the day, Rahul had tweeted: “In view of the Covid situation, I am suspending all my public rallies in West Bengal. I would advise all political leaders to think deeply about the consequences of holding large public rallies under the current circumstances.”
Sources said the Congress was unlikely to campaign in the rest three poll phases.
Asked to comment on Rahul’s decision, Bengal BJP general-secretary and spokesperson Sayantan Basu claimed the Congress leader was trying to make excuses to avoid rallies in Bengal because of low turnouts.
“The Congress and CPM have been failing to bring in people to their meetings. For them, large crowds mean 50 people and small crowds five people. This was an excuse to save their faces,” said Basu.
On Rahul’s advice to other leaders against large public rallies, Basu said: “Who is Rahul Gandhi to advise? The Election Commission of India is there. If they put up a guideline, all parties will abide by it.”
The Congress has been extremely critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah for extensive campaigns amid the second wave of Covid-19 acquiring massive proportions.
While Shah has debunked any link between rising infections and electioneering, arguing that other states had shown much sharper rise than Bengal, Modi’s exaltation over a big crowd in his Asansol rally on Saturday — when Bengal for the first time reported 7,000-plus infections in a day — drew scorn on social media.
Modi said he was seeing such a massive crowd for the first time — something he has said repeatedly this poll season — as he could see people and nothing else all around.
Responding to his ecstatic claim, Rahul tweeted on Sunday: “Such a big crowd of sick people and the dead are also seen for the first time.”
The Congress posted several videos on social media sites of people dying without treatment and pyres at crematoriums in various cities.
Social media is flooded with horrific videos of the grim Covid-19 scenario in the country, which the Prime Minister has not referred to in his election rallies.
The Congress on Sunday intensified its attack on the Centre, arguing that Modi had betrayed the nation in this hour of crisis. Senior leader P. Chidambaram said in a series of tweets: “While ‘no vaccine’ boards hang on the door of most hospitals, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan claims that ‘there is no shortage in the supply of vaccines’. Believe the minister, there is no shortage of vaccines, oxygen, Remdesivir, hospital beds, doctors and nurses. There is only a shortage of patients!”
Chidambaram listed the states facing vaccine, bed or oxygen shortages and asked: “Dear Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, are all the above claims false and demands unjustified? How do you say that there are no shortages?”
