 I hope everybody is well and taking care of themselves. In the Congress party, we have been having an internal discussion about some of our suggestions to the government. And I thought in this press conference, I would lay out some of the ideas that are being discussed internally in the Congress party. And it is in the spirit of attempting to help the government and to provide some sort of input from our side. You know that we've been now 45 days in lockdown and we are beginning to run into a little bit of a problem. There is a very strong feeling that we need to immediately, without any delay, get this package to our small and medium businesses, get money into the hands of the poorest Indians, have a strategy for our migrants and start preparing properly for the opening of this lockdown. So that is what I wanted to discuss with you. Feel free to ask me whatever questions you like. Fauji, we are in the middle of lockdown 3 and various experts across the world including the AIMS director here have said that the peak will come sometime in June and July. What do you think should be the government's decision on May 17 and what should guide it? And since you said the Congress has also made some suggestions in this regard. The central thing the government needs to do is it needs to now give a little bit of transparency on its actions. We need to understand when they open, what is the criteria for that opening? So what are the boxes that they want checked off, ticked off before they actually start to open? Number one, and I think it's important that the government tells the people of India that these are the criteria that we're going to be using. And if these criteria are met, then we are going to open. Second, we simply cannot continue without providing support to the people who are suffering as a result of this lockdown. And the thing that is most important to understand that the lockdown is not simply a switching on a key and getting rid of the lockdown. Lockdown requires number of things to happen. It requires a psychological change. Currently the disease in India is seen as a very, very dangerous disease. And it is true. The disease is dangerous for certain groups of people. It is absolutely dangerous for older people. It is absolutely dangerous for people with diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, chronic infection, lung infection. But other than that, it is not a dangerous disease. So we are going to have to make a psychological change in the mind of our people. Basically the people are very scared of the disease. The government, if it wants to open up, it has to turn this fear into a sense of confidence. Do you think that the strategy of this lockdown was the purpose of this lockdown? It is being defeated and people have lost their faith in the government. Is this the reason that people are coming out on the streets? My second question is that you have started a series where you are talking to all the experts. What is the purpose of this series? What are the suggestions or feedback you are getting? This is not the time to criticize. I will not criticize. The situation in which we are now, we have to move ahead from that situation and get out of it in a way. The lockdown did not happen, everything is fine. The place is there, it has happened. It is in the past. But now we need a strategy to open up. I will tell you the nuance in two or three of these. If you ask any business owner, he will tell you that our supply chain, that red, yellow and green, red, orange and green, comes out of the middle of the system. So the healthcare system of red, orange and green, and the economic supply chain, there is a clash. So he says that these two things need to be resolved. Migrants have to give money today, support today. Poor people have to give money today. And the small and medium industries have to help them today. Not yesterday, not tomorrow, today. Because if we don't help today, then the job losses will become a tsunami. So we have to give them confidence and protect them. So the first question is that we need to get a strategy, a way out, a way out. And Congress is ready to help them because we also have states. We have a lot of people who understand these things, who understand economics. And the spirit of the press conference is this. Your second question, these are my conversations. See, normally I talk to a lot of people, in a normal course. And among them, the conversations of a lot of people are very interesting. So I thought that I will show those conversations to the people of India to the people, to the other people. And the basic idea was that the conversations from the experts that I am getting to learn and understand, I will also show that to other people. There is no strategy behind that. Do you think the time has come for a national migrant labour policy? There are pushes and pulls with regards to the migrant labour. The first broad thing that we are seeing is take the idea of Niai and start putting money directly into 50% of India's poor households. Just without thinking of it, just start doing that. It's not going to cost so much. 65,000 crores is what it's going to cost. And it will completely transform the way people are thinking about this current situation, their current situation. Because we have to understand, if you're on daily wages, you do not have choices. You simply do not have a choice. So we have to give them a choice. That's point number one. Point number two is the transfer of migrants. I'm not an expert on this. So I'm not going to set an opine what I think about trains. But what I do think is that a conversation between states has to happen. And these decisions have to be made with empathy towards migrants, with thinking about their rights, so not crushing their rights. But they have to happen between states and the centre has to oversee them. The pain has to be reduced, absolutely. So you're saying the minimum income right away, Mr Gandhi? Am I correct? I'm saying that we are in an emergency. We require absolutely the idea of Nike. Call it whatever you want. Call it something else. Call it run for the run, Manthri, Yojana, whatever you want to do. But the idea of injecting immediately 7500 rupees directly into 50% of Indian households is critical and it's not such a big ask price. Second, the idea that we can simply let our job creators drown. This is not feasible. We have to protect them. We have to make sure that we give them a wage protection scheme, 1 lakh crore wage protection scheme and 1 lakh crore credit guarantee scheme to MSMS. And then we have to give them 6 month interest subsidy. So we have to build a wall for them so that they can fight what is coming. We have to give them a financial support behind them. Look, it is pretty clear that a lot of these companies are going to go down. If we do not do anything, massive number of them are going to go down. So we have to ensure that we build a wall and we protect as many of them as possible. Now, there's another thing here, which is something important that when we think about India's business system, we cannot simply say MSMEs and not big business because there is a link between big business and MSMEs. Most of the stuff the MSMEs supply goes to big business. So if your big business isn't firing, your MSMEs can't fire. So there has to be a view where we are thinking systemically, where we are working to start the economy, where we are certainly giving much more benefit to the small and medium industry. But we are also keeping in mind that there is a link between large business and small and medium business. Suddenly say, okay, only SMM, only small business is going to be out and big business is going to be left to its own devices. We'll actually harm small business as well. Thing to understand in this current situation is everything is connected. And if you want to start the engine, you cannot think of starting just one part of the engine. You've got to start the whole engine. That is why creating demand, putting money into the system, putting money into poor people's hands, helping small and medium businesses, making sure you're protecting some of the larger players. These are all things that are interlinked if you want to start the economy. We haven't still heard from the government anything about fiscal assistance package. Why is it necessary? The assistance is necessary why? No, sorry, you're saying the assistance is necessary why? Why is it necessary? Why is it essential to announce it soon? Because the Indian economy stopped because businesses are collapsing and you need to create demand immediately. You need to get the system started, otherwise we'll have a catastrophe. Now I understand that there is a view in the government that if we move too fast and we spend too much money, we might end up getting a downgrade and we might end up creating problems with the rupee. But my sense is that you've got to take that risk. You have to move aggressively now because if you do not control and defend the foundation of our economy, downgrade and all will not matter anymore. Thank you, sir. India is all about domestic consumption. We have to start domestic consumption. We have to start the engine and I'm sorry to say we're losing time and the more time we lose, the worse the impact is going to be. But why do you think the government is delaying it? I said to you that there is a sense in the government that creating a large deficit will create problems externally as far as the rupee is concerned and as far as downgrading of our country is concerned. But I think the government needs to stop that and move quickly to protect the heart of our economy. Sir, you are talking about decentralization again and again. What do you think is the government's attitude towards the states? What is the benefit and loss of the Prime Minister's quote-unquote strong leader? Thank you, sir. Frankly, if you ask me, the Prime Minister's style and that is his place. That is his style. But in this incident, instead of a strong leader many strong chief ministers, a strong Prime Minister and a lot of strong DMs and a lot of strong collectors are needed. I want us to put the disease at the local level. At every level, a strong Indian leader is standing in front of the disease. Whether he is a DM, whether he is a farmer. But his style is different. I will give you a small example. These zones are made from the national level. These zones should be made on the state level. Our state chief ministers are saying that the red zone on the national level is actually the green zone. And the green zone is actually the red zone. So information is with the state level leaders. So it is necessary that the zones that are being made should actually be made on the basis of the DM and the Chief Minister. The information is with the DM. The information is with the Chief Minister. There is no such information in Delhi. I will give a small example. Do you think that the government is going on trial and error and there are thousands of people on the line for the safety and the life of the people? Look, if we speak fairly then the situation in which there is India today and there is no normal situation then there will be no normal solution. I want to say that there is a solution. If we decentralize and take this fight to the district level then the Indian solution can be removed. If we keep this fight in the PMO then the fight will be lost. So the Prime Minister will have to devolve the power. The Prime Minister will have to trust the Chief Ministers and the Chief Ministers will have to trust the DMs. And if we centralize it then there will be calamity. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, how much money has been spent in the PM care fund? Will the Congress Party ask how much money has been spent? The Government and the Indian Party have to say that Congress is making a decision and it is not helping. Look at my press conference. I did not do any political attack. You asked me. You gave me a lot of opportunities. I did not take any opportunity. Because I know and understand that this is not the right time. This time is of help, frankly. The people of India are suffering. We have to stand with them. We are doing that. PM fund. We should have its auditing. We should be clear who gave the money, how much money and whom. Now clear it. Audit it. No problem. We brought the Indians from Italy, Iran, and three of cost. They were students. They were in distress. But when the workers and workers were brought from Khaadi, the Government was taking charge of them. How is this right? It is wrong. All Indians are one. Everyone should get one treatment. And if we talk about transferring people in this situation, we have to check that whether they are medically checked or not. If they are medically checked and safe, there is no problem in transferring them. In my view, do two or three things. Number one, reduce the fear of the Indian public. Job number one, make India believe that look, yes, it is a scary disease. Yes, it is scary for a certain amount of people. But it is also not a deadly disease for many people. Number two, start talking with the Chief Ministers. Not talking as the boss, but talking as a colleague, talking as someone who is helping them. Forget about Congress rule states, BJP rule states, CPIMs, forget about all that. They are all Indian Chief Ministers. And they should all be working together with the Prime Minister. If I was to advise the Prime Minister, even though it is not my place, definitely, you know, once in two, three days a call to every single Chief Minister. That would be very important. And a partnership type of call. Don't dilly-dally, put money immediately into our people's hands. Don't worry about it. Our people are solid people. They will turn this thing around if you give them the opportunity. Thank you very much.