Pakistan, Afghanistan handled COVID-19 better than India: Rahul Gandhi

Launching another attack on the Narendra Modi-led BJP government at the centre, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday criticised its handling of the COVID-19 crisis and said that even Pakistan and Afghanistan did a better job than India.

"Another solid achievement by the BJP government. Even Pakistan and Afghanistan handled Covid better than India," he tweeted along with a graph of GDP projection for 2020-2021.

The Congress leader has repeatedly targeted the Central government and Bharatiya Janata Party on various issues pertaining to governance, COVID-19 and the economy.

According to Johns Hopkins University, there are 321,877 COVID-19 cases in Pakistan and 40,026 in Afghanistan. However, it is important to note that they are significantly less populated countries when compared to India.

As per the Union Health Ministry data, India's COVID-19 count reached 73,07,098 on Thursday.

On Wednesday, Gandhi had said that Bangladesh is set to overtake India in terms of per capita GDP due to BJP's hate-filled cultural nationalism.

Gandhi, through his tweet, attributed the dip in India's numbers to BJP's political agenda which he said has been carried out in the six years of its rule at the Centre.

"Solid achievement of six years of BJP's hate-filled cultural nationalism: Bangladesh set to overtake India," Gandhi said.

In response, government sources said that India's GDP is 11 times more than that of Bangladesh.

In 2019, India's GDP in purchasing parity terms was 11 times more of Bangladesh while the population was 8 times more. In purchasing power parity terms, India's per capita GDP in 2020 is estimated by IMF at $6284 compared to $5139 for Bangladesh, government sources quoted by news agency ANI said.

IMF has estimated India's GDP to grow at 8.8 per cent in 2021, twice that of Bangladesh at 4.4 per cent. Under the present government, Per Capita GDP increased from Rs 83,091 in 2014-15 to Rs 1,08,620 in 2019-20 - an increase of 30.7 per cent. Under UPA 2, it had increased by 19.8 per cent, the sources said.