NDA Is 'No Data Available' Govt With No Answers or Accountability: Rahul Gandhi

The NDA govt wants you to believe no one died of oxygen shortage, no farmer died protesting, he said.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

(Photo: PTI)

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday, 23 July, dubbed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government as a 'No Data Available' government.

Taking to Twitter, the former president of the Congress party wrote that the 'No Data Available' (NDA) government had no answers or accountability over several critical issues affecting the country.

Gandhi's jibe comes after the government informed Parliament on Friday that no data was available on the number of anganwadi workers who had died due to COVID-19.

Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani, replying to a question in the Lok Sabha, said the Anganwadi Services was a scheme implemented by the states and Union Territories, and not the Union government.

Similarly, the Centre, in November last year, said that it had no data pertaining to either cases against or the number of farmers who died during the year-long agitation demanding the repeal of the three contentious farm laws.

In September 2020, the Union Ministry of Labour and Employment told Parliament that it ha no data on the number of migrant workers who lost their lives during the nationwide lockdown, which was imposed in a bid to curb the spread of COVID-19 in 2020.

Here are some of the past instances where the Centre said it had 'no data'.

• No data on deaths caused by manual scavenging in the past 5 years (Reply in Rajya Sabha, July 2021)

• No data on deaths of healthcare staff during the pandemic (Reply in Rajya Sabha, September 2020)

• No data on deaths of RTI activists (Reply in Lok Sabha, December 2019)

• No data on safai karamcharis’ (sanitation workers) deaths during the pandemic (Reply in Rajya Sabha, September 2020)

• No data on police personnel who died of COVID-19 (Reply in Lok Sabha, September 2020)