No efforts for stimulus to people: Bajaj Auto MD

During a conversation with former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, the Managing Director of Bajaj Auto Limited Rajiv Bajaj said that the country will have to get the demand going again. He said he does not understand why there are no efforts to provide stimulus to people.

The conversation with Rahul Gandhi was released by the Congress on Thursday. Recently, Gandhi has been holding discussions with academics and intellectuals in the issues of economy and covid pandemic. It was during this that Bajaj shared his opinion on the subject.

Bajaj said he strongly believes that a large country like India cannot save itself out of trouble. "It has to sell itself out of trouble. We have to get demand going again, we have to provide something that lifts the mood of the people. And I do not understand why there is no strong initiative, even if it is for a period of six months-one year to strongly lift the mood of the people and provide a stimulus to demand," Bajaj said.

On the issue of "fear", Bajaj said nobody will invest unless he does so with enthusiasm and confidence. "There is no doubt about it. The question in India is that if 100 people are afraid to speak up, first point is perhaps 90 of them anyway have something to hide. We must also accept that in the last few years, towards, I would say UPA II and NDA I, lot of skeletons have come out of the cupboard also. So businessmen are also very clean people and so many examples we’ve seen of that, so maybe, my view is that a lot of people don’t speak, unlike, if I may say so, somebody like my father (Rahul Bajaj), simply because perhaps they can’t afford to speak. So, it may be fear, but the question is, fear of what? Maybe they have the fear of hiding something," Bajaj said.

He said there are people who do not want to speak. "Who simply do not want to because they cannot deal with the backlash that comes their way, and a little bit I fall into that category. There is a reason I am not on any social media and without naming a couple of channels I will say to you that even yesterday, I had an invite from the most prominent channel that is very pro government, if I may say so, and I refuse to be on such channels because of the kind of stuff one hears on social media, the way on sees things conducted in panels on such channels is deeply distressing to anybody who is even remotely sensitive. So, I think yes, in terms of being tolerant, in terms of being sensitive, I think, India needs to mend a couple of things," Bajaj added.

He said an aligned approach is required towards lifting lockdown. "This is not happening and I think the blame for this rests again with the kind of fear we created in the first place, that infection -- death," he said and added that it is a herculean task to open.

"So I think that the first problem is to get this fear out of the minds of the people, there has to be a very clear aligned narrative, I would say from the PM because, right or wrong, when he says something people seem to follow. I think he needs to stand up and say to everyone that this is how we are going to move forward, it’s is all under control, do not fear infections, almost nobody is dying, you know and we have to move forward now," the business leader said.

During the conversation, Gandhi reiterated that it was a failed lockdown. "It is the only lockdown in the world where the disease is increasing after we are opening up. What you are finding is that you are going back to that anyway. The Central Government backed off and said that now we are going to be forced to leave it to the States. So the correct response is happening organically," he added.