The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has demanded that the government convene a meeting of all political parties to discuss the impact of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and evolve measures to effectively tackle the menace.
CPI (M) State secretary Tammineni Veerabhadram said that coronavirus has become a cause of concern for the State, endangering public health and the government should take political parties, voluntary organisations and experts into confidence in evolving ways to tackle the spread of the virus. Given the intensive efforts being made by the government to contain the virus, the suggestions of political parties and others would supplement the efforts.
The governments of several States had already convened all-party meetings and the Central government too convened an all-party meeting on April 8 to explain about the measures taken to check the spread of the virus and seek their suggestions. There was need for the government to convene the meeting in the light of efforts by some political parties and vested interests to ‘communalise’ COVID-19 citing the Nizamuddin Markaz prayers at New Delhi. There was need to counter these efforts by ensuring that all political parties stayed together.
There were reports relating to absence of facilities to doctors treating the COVID-19 patients whose number was increasing by the day and there was absence of testing kits at some places hindering the testing process. The government should therefore take the political parties into confidence by convening the all-party meeting, he said in a letter addressed to Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao.