Centre seeks political mileage, accuses Mamta Banerjee| PM-CM meet on Covid-19

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi held the fifth video-conference with all the Chief Ministers on Monday, May 11, 2020. He emphasized the resumption of economic momentum for the next couple of days. Despite the world’s biggest lockdown imposed on March 25, the number of positive cases had crossed 70,000 the same day. He said cases increased only in areas where lockdown guidelines and social distancing were not observed.

The meeting was also joined by home minister Amit Shah and health minister Harsh Vardhan, defence minister Rajnath Singh, and finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

PM gave credit to the state governments, said they played a major role in fighting Covid-19. The CMs gave region-based inputs and some asked for autonomy given different problems in different areas. It was made clear that the lockdown will extend after May 17. Albeit, PM said that India must not be held hostage by Covid-19 and must ramp up activities taking proper precautions.

Highlights from the meeting:

Kejriwal favours economic activities

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that it’s time that India learns to live with Covid-19. He stood in favour of resuming economic activities excluding containment zones.

He said in his time to speak the instead of “red” or “green zones”, containment zones should be divided even within districts to indicate open and locked down areas.

With a total of 6,923 cases in Delhi, this puts it at number 4 in terms of positive cases.

More structured planning for India

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray requests the PM to resume local trains in Mumbai. He assures locals only for essential services and staff working in the city.

Currently, Maharashtra has the most number of positive cases in India, the total being 22,171 as of Monday.

Thackeray says that PM should show specific and concrete direction for phase four of lockdown. Chhattisgarh Chief Minister wasn’t happy that the micro plans and demarcation of containment zones be left to the States.

West Bengal politically victimised

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamta Banerjee said that the Centre shouldn’t play politics. She points to being politically victimised over Covid-19 in West Bengal.

She said equal importance must be given to all states and India should work together as a team.

She said the centre wants to extend lockdown yet is opening almost everything including land borders, resumption of trains, and airports.

153 new cases were seen on Monday at 8 am bringing total cases to 1,939. This ranks West Bengal at number 9 in terms of cases in India.

Resumption of transport services

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister E Palanisami and Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao opposed the resumption of trains and opening of airports.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar echoed the same thoughts and said that as Railway Minister he knows better and that resumption could lead to a wider spread of the virus.

Train services are scheduled to begin from Tuesday with ‘migrant specials’ to take the stranded migrant workers to their native places. Railways have been running ‘migrant special’ since May 1.

On Sunday evening, Railways announced that starting from May 12, 15 trains will be running in pairs of 2 to only certain destinations.

PM’s statements and decisions

Mr. Modi said one of the challenges would be to reduce the spread of the virus into villages. He said new cases arose as the human nature of migrant workers to return to native places from urban areas.

The PM says that he believes that the measures taken in the first phase of lockdown were not needed in the second phase, the measures taken in the second phase were not needed in the third phase and hence the measures of the third phase won’t be needed in the fourth phase of the lockdown.

India now faces a dual challenge-‘reduction of transmission of Covid-19’ and ‘gradual increase in public activities’ while adhering to the guidelines of lockdown. He signified the importance of the distance of two yards- ‘do gaaz doori’.

With the suggestions from all the Chief Ministers, Lockdown 4.0 will have its guidelines that would be announced before May 18. This ensures an accelerated exit from the lockdown into normalcy. The Prime Minister is confident that India will move forward alongside fighting the virus.

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