“Geniuses”: Rahul Gandhi mocks Niti Aayog over zero COVID case prediction

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday took pot shots at the Niti Aayog and the Centre over one of its predictions that there would be no fresh cases of coronavirus infection in India from May 16.

"The geniuses at Niti Aayog have done it again. I'd like to remind you of their graph predicting the government's national lockdown strategy would ensure no fresh COVID-19 cases from tomorrow, May 16," the former Congress President tweeted.

According to the graph attached to the post by Gandhi, COVID-19 cases in India saw a sudden spike from April 2, that peaked on April 18. The graph was predicted to descend from April 24 and a complete dip on May 16 -- suggesting zero cases.

Last month, during a press conference, Rahul Gandhi had said: "In no way does a lockdown defeat the virus. It helps only to pause the virus for a short while. The only way to do this is to increase testing and chasing the virus, and going beyond, and this is my advice to the government -- use testing."

As of Friday, India has 51,401 active coronavirus cases.

The lockdown, enforced on March 25, was originally supposed to end on April 14. It was then extended to May 3, and then again to May 17.