Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged Indians to adopt several lifestyle changes, including shifting to working from home yet again and avoid buying gold for about a year, in order to soften the impact of the ongoing war between the United States and Iran. However, his suggestions failed to impress the Opposition as Congress called it a “proof of failure”.
Modi’s appeal to the nation, which he shared on Sunday while speaking in Hyderabad where he inaugurated multiple projects, came over two months after the war in West Asia started on February 28. The war, which is under temporary ceasefire for now, sent ripples across the world as it seriously dented global energy supply.
Reacting to Modi’s address, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabh Rahul Gandhi wrote in a post on X, “Modi ji demanded sacrifices from the public yesterday – don’t buy gold, don’t go abroad, use less petrol, cut down on fertilizer and cooking oil, take the metro, work from home.”
He added that these were not mere “sermons” but “proofs of failure”.
“In 12 years, he’s brought the country to such a pass that the public has to be told – what to buy, what not to buy, where to go, where not to go. Every time, they shift the responsibility onto the people so they can escape accountability themselves,” Gandhi wrote.
He reiterated his “compromised PM” jab at Modi and said that running the country was no longer within his reach.
Gandhi’s party colleague KC Venugopal also shared the sentiment and claimed that Modi was “clueless about ensuring India’s energy security” even weeks after the war started.
He said that it was “shameless, reckless and downright immoral” that the Prime Minister is “pushing the common citizen into inconvenience, instead of building contingencies to ensure our economy is unaffected by this global crisis”.
He added that the government must take necessary steps to make sure that there are ample fuel reserves so no one has to face “inconvenience”.
Another Congress leader, Karti P Chidambaram, called Modi’s appeal to the nation serious “directives” and questioned the “trigger” for this. He also called for an immediate Parliament session to discuss the same and asked the government to take the nation “into confidence” and inform about the “true state of affairs which has necessitated these “appeals”.”
‘WFH, no foreign travel’
In his address on Sunday, Modi urged people to shift to work from home if possible to save fuel, the way it was done during Covid-19. He also asked people to prefer metro and other public transport to reduce petrol and diesel consumption.
Modi’s appeals come at a time when the entire world is grappling with an energy crisis triggered by the war between US and Iran.
“In this time of global crisis, we have to make a resolution keeping duty paramount and fulfil it with complete dedication. A big resolution is to use petrol and diesel sparingly. We must curb our use of petrol and diesel. In cities with Metro lines, we should decide to travel by Metro only. If we must use a car, then we should try to carpool,” Modi said.
He said that it would be in “national interest” if people restart the work-from-home system.
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