The rising coronavirus crisis in the country has made Prime Minister Narendra Modi call up former Presidents, Prime Ministers, and opposition leaders in order to forge bipartisan support in India’s fight against the COVID-19 outbreak.
The country has entered the 11th day of lockdown that, as of now, ends on the 14th of April 2020. With the rising cases, there are speculations of the lockdown being stretched. The government officials, the health ministry, the healthcare staff, the essential service people and the political leaders of the state have relentlessly been working to contain the pandemic. While the opposition has extended unconditional support to the government, some of the decisions and the lack of strict measures by the government have drawn criticism.
PM Modi calls up Opposition Leaders
In a welcome move, the sources in the government have said that the Prime Minister has reached out to leaders from the opposition, former Presidents and Prime Ministers to take them into confidence in the crisis.
According to the sources, Narendra Modi called up former Presidents Pranab Mukherjee and Pratibha Patil along with former Prime Ministers HD Devegowda and Manmohan Singh. Reportedly, he even called up Congress President Sonia Gandhi, the Chief Minister of Orissa Naveen Patnaik, the Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao, Samajwadi Party leaders Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav, the Chief of Shiromani Akali Dal Prakash Singh Badal and DMK chief MK Stalin.
As per the source, in his call with MK Stalin, the Prime Minister enquired about the health of his mother Dayalu Ammal. Reportedly, every call had an agenda to take the leaders into confidence and take up their suggestion to combat the COVID-19 crisis.
On April 8th, the Prime Minister has called on for a video conference with the flood leaders of both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha of only those parties that have a minimum of 5 seats. However, the Trinamool Congress has declined to be a part of it.
India has seen a huge spike in the past week as it reported 2,000 confirmed cases in the last week. With 99 deaths and 229 recovered, India saw the highest testing in a day on Saturday with 10,000 samples. The world, as a collective, isn’t showing a pretty picture too. The number of deaths is around 64,000 with 229,000 recovered of a million cases reported so far.
