The BJP on Thursday hit out at Rahul Gandhi for his claim that lockdown is not a solution to the coronavirus pandemic and asked why then the states where the Congress is in power extended it before the central government did so.
The ruling party also contested the Congress leader's claim that India was not doing enough testing, saying the number of tests carried out by it are one of the highest at this level of infections.
Senior BJP leaders B L Santhosh and Vinay Sahasrabuddhe attacked Gandhi while party spokesperson Sambit Patra mocked him by playing on certain words and phrases used by the former Congress president.
"While the Govt has a catch-the-bull-by-horns approach and is trying to defeat Covid-19, he (Gandhi) is airing views with an approach that smacks of a 'given up' mentality, certifying that 'it can't be controlled' but will have to be 'managed'! Painful, seriously!" Sahasrabuddhe said.
Santhosh noted that some states where the Congress is in power had extended the lockdown before Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on April 14 its extension till May 3.
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The BJP general secretary (organisation) tweeted, "Lockdown is not the solution acc to @RahulGandhi ... Then why did the CMs of @INCIndia Cong partnered govts extend the lock down first ...? (sic)."
Maharashtra, where the Congress is part of government, has backed the lockdown, with the state dispensation extending it to April 30 before Modi's announcement.
Punjab, where the Congress is in power, had also extended the lockdown before Modi's April 14 address to the nation.
Modi had said that most chief ministers favoured lockdown to combat the pandemic.
Gandhi earlier strongly pitched for aggressively expanding coronavirus testing across the country and adopting it as a "strategic" instrument to "defeat" the pandemic.
He said the lockdown is not a solution to the pandemic, and the time must be utilised to significantly bolster the existing medical infrastructure as well as take steps to deal with the worrying economic fall out.
BJP leader Patra tweeted a few short clips from Gandhi's press conference to mock him.
"I am laughing STRATEGICALLY and rolling on the floor DYNAMICALLY," he said.
Santhosh added that the India Council of Medical Research has rejected Gandhi's charge that India is not doing enough testing.
"ICMR rejects @RahulGandhi charge that India is testing less . It tells India's ratio tests to positive cases 24 :1 is highest in the world .. more than Italy, US , Japan. ICMR will also take up pool testing of 5 samples henceforth," he said.
From its Twitter handle, the BJP also put out data to assert that India has managed to "significantly contain" COVID-19 as compared to other severely hit countries, at just nine cases per one million of population and 0.3 deaths per one million population.
At the benchmark of 12,000 positive corona cases the pace of spread in India has been consistently much slower than other countries which have been severely hit, it added.
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