New Delhi, April 5: Seeing the rise in coronavirus cases, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, former Presidents, Pranab Mukherjee and Pratibha Patil, former Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and HD Devegowda and Opposition leaders and sought their views on how to tackle the coronavirus outbreak in the country.
Modi also called up opposition leaders Sonia Gandhi, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav, Mamata Banerjee, Naveen Patnaik, K Chandrashekar Rao, MK Stalin and Parkash Singh Badal to discuss a more coordinated and unified fight against the novel coronavirus.
The reason being Prime Minister’s outreach is despite the lockdown , the coronavirus cases have been increasing and other problems such as shortage of personal protection equipment for the medical staff, ventilators for saving the lives of COVID-19 positive patients and another several factors of providing facilities such as food, shelter , hygiene conditions to migrants and the most important fall out of COVID-19 being the country’s economy.
Last week, he held a video-conference with various chief ministers. Prime Minister was criticised for not taking the opposition or even the state Chief Ministers views on how to implement the lockdown so that the needy people do not suffer and to deal with the ongoing corona crisis.
It is worth mentioning that Sonia Gandhi has slammed Modi for implementing the lockdown in an unplanned manner as it has resulted in chaos and pain among millions of migrant labourers.
Highlighting the plight of poor and disadvantaged, Sonia said, “In our country, those who are most vulnerable to the consequences of this pandemic are the poor and disadvantaged. We must come together for their sake and do all we can to support them through the difficult days that lie ahead,” she said.
“It has been heart-breaking to see lakhs of people walking for hundreds of kilometres towards their villages without food or shelter. It is the duty of us all to do our utmost to lessen their suffering,” she added.
Modi has also reached out to various public personalities including cricketers and artistes to underscore the dos and don’ts to control the spread of the virus so the message reaches the people.
Over the last 24 hours, the country recorded 472 cases of coronavirus, which took the total to 3,374. So far, 77 people have died in the country.