Sena slams Modi govt for Central Vista project amid pandemic

The Shiv Sena on Saturday said that while smaller countries in the neighbourhood are offering help to India to tackle COVID-19, the Modi government is not even ready to stop the work of the multi-crore Central Vista project.

The party also said that the system created in the past 70 years by previous prime ministers, including Pandit Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, has helped the country live through the tough times that it is facing today.

''The UNICEF has expressed fear that there is a threat to the world from India due to the pace at which coronavirus is spreading in the country. It has also made an appeal that maximum number of countries should help India in the fight against COVID-19. Bangladesh has sent 10,000 Remdesivir vials, while Bhutan has sent medical oxygen. Nepal, Myanmar and Sri Lanka have also offered help to 'aatmanirbhar' India,'' the Sena said in an editorial in its mouthpiece 'Saamana'.

''In clear terms, India is surviving on the system created by Nehru-Gandhi. Many poor countries are offering help to India. Earlier, countries like Pakistan, Rwanda and Congo used to get help from others. But due to the wrong policies of today's rulers, India is going through that situation now,'' it said.

But while poor countries are helping India in their own way, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not ready to stop the ambitious project of Central Vista worth Rs 20,000 crore, the Sena added.

The party expressed surprise that nobody feels regret that on the one hand, India accepts aid from countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Bhutan, while on the other, Modi is not ready to stop work on the multi-crore Central Vista project for construction of a new Parliament building and the house of the prime minister.

The redevelopment project of the Central Vista - the power corridor of the country - envisages a new triangular Parliament building, a common Central Secretariat and the revamping of the three-km-long Rajpath from the Rashtrapati Bhavan to India Gate and new residences for the prime minister and the vice president.

The Sena said that even as the world is battling a second wave of COVID-19, experts have predicted that the third wave will be more severe. But the ruling BJP is doing all it can to corner Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal even today.

''A sensitive and a nationalist government would not have thought about the political pros and cons and set up a national panel of all main political parties to discuss ways to defeat the pandemic,'' the Uddhav Thackeray-led party said.

BJP MP Subramanian Swamy has demanded that Union minister Nitin Gadkari be given the charge of the health ministry and this is a proof that the current union health ministry has been a complete failure, it added.

India has reported the highest number of COVID-19 deaths in the last 10 days. Globally, one out of the five active patients is in India. In the last ten days, 36,110 deaths have occurred. Every hour, there are 150 COVID-19 deaths in the country. We have left USA and Brazil behind in terms of deaths due to virus. The world fears India now, the Sena said.

According to it, several countries have stopped their citizens from travelling to India and our country is bearing the economic brunt of the pandemic.

''The country is presently surviving thanks to the development works, projects set up by and the confidence given by the previous governments of PanditNehru, (Lal Bahadur) Shastri, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, P V Narasimha Rao, Manmohan Singh,'' it said.

The prime ministerwill have to do a lot of hard work andthink of non-political nationalismto help the country come out of the pandemic, it said.

On Friday, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had attacked the Union government over the Central Vista project, terming it a ''criminal wastage'' and asked the dispensation to focus on people's lives.