Transfer money into the hands of the poor if there is going to be another lockdown: Congress leader Ajay Maken

There has been a spike in the number of COVID-19 cases in the national Capital during the past week and it had touched 8,700 just before Diwali. The number of deaths has also been on the rise with 131 people having died on November 18. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said he was mulling about shutting down selective shut down of markets, but deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia said there would not be a lockdown.

With this current situation in the backdrop, National Herald spoke to Opposition leader and Congress general secretary Ajay Maken, who underscored that there has not been a consistent plan Delhi. It has always been a knee-jerk reaction. The government hasn’t spent enough resources in tackling the disease, instead they spent Rs 32 crore in advertising about the Diwali puja, said Maken, who was a former minister both in the Union cabinet and in Sheila Dikshit’s government.

The Opposition leader underscored that the only basis for the Aam Aadmi Party government was revenue, but that revenue is not as important as human life.

Maken said that if Congress had been in government, they would have done it differently. “If we had been in the government, we would have transferred cash directly to the accounts of people. Why not send Rs 10,000 into the accounts of these people? We would have augmented the number of beds in the capital too.”

Edited excerpts of the interview: