‘Nehru ji to blame?’ Rahul Gandhi takes dig at PM Modi over power crisis

Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the ongoing power crisis in the country. Taking to Twitter, Gandhi asked the Prime Minister whom he would blame for the current “failure” over the crisis, a result of a shortage in coal supplies and plants shutting for maintenance amid soaring electricity demand.

“The prime minister’s promises and intentions have always been disconnected. Modi ji, who will you blame for your failure in this power crisis? Nehru ji or states or people?” Gandhi asked in a tweet posted in Hindi.

Along with the tweet, Gandhi also shared a video showing the Prime minister’s past speeches, in which he had promised to make electricity available 24 hours. The video also carried news headlines from various channels anchors speaking on the severity of the issue.

Several states including the national capital Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh among others, are in the midst of their worst power crisis in six years as electricity demand soared following the early onset of the summers and the subsequent heatwave.

The rise in power demand has left the country scrambling for coal, a dominant fuel used to generate electricity in the country.

Power distribution companies expect the situation to worsen next month if coal supplies do not improve. At the aggregate level, stocks with Coal India and power plants can meet demand for a month-and-a-half, but at a disaggregated level, many plants have stocks only for days.

According to a report by Reuters, electricity supply fell short of demand by 1.88 billion units, or 1.6%, during the first 27 days of April. This has led to consumers facing power cuts ranging from 2 hours to 8 hours in various states.

On Friday, the Congress accused the Centre of misgovernance, saying mismanagement at their end led to this “artificial” crisis in the scorching summer. It also alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre is not providing logistical support for coal distribution to power plants across the country, leading to the crisis.