After Bharatsinh Solanki\, 3 more Gujarat Congress leaders test Covid-19 positive

After Bharatsinh Solanki, 3 more Gujarat Congress leaders test Covid-19 positive

The state broke its recent trend of discharging as many people as those testing positive — or more on some days — as Thursday saw 410 patients being discharged against the 577 who tested positive.

By: Express News Service | Ahmedabad, Rajkot | Published: June 26, 2020 1:54:15 am
Gujarat congress leaders test positive, congress leaders coronavirus, bharatsinh solanki, coronavirus, gujarat coronavirus, covid-19, indian express According to officials of Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC), MLA Chirag Kalariya, former Ahmedabad Congress president Chetan P Raval and Gujarat Congress vice-president from Vadodara, Maulin Vaishnav, have tested positive for Covid-19. (File Photo)

Three senior Congress leaders from Gujarat, including a legislator, have tested positive for Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, days after the party’s Rajya Sabha candidate Bharatsinh Solanki was found to be infected with the novel coronavirus.

Meanwhile, the state broke its recent trend of discharging as many people as those testing positive — or more on some days — as Thursday saw 410 patients being discharged against the 577 who tested positive.

According to officials of Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC), MLA Chirag Kalariya, former Ahmedabad Congress president Chetan P Raval and Gujarat Congress vice-president from Vadodara, Maulin Vaishnav, have tested positive for Covid-19.

Speaking to The Indian Express, GPCC spokesperson Jairajsinh Parmar said, “The results of three of our senior leaders have come out positive and they are all in a stable condition. Our other leaders such as Himmatsinh Patel, Shaktisinh Gohil, Lakha Bharwad and CJ Chavda have been put under quarantine. The test report of our GPCC president Amit Chavda has come out negative.”

On June 22, three days after the Rajya Sabha elections in the state, Congress candidate and former Union minister Bharatsinh Solanki had tested positive. After his results, as many as a dozen leaders who had come in contact with him during the elections were put under quarantine, especially Raval and Vaishnav who had accompanied him to Gandhinagar.

Chavda tweeted , “Three senior leaders of Gujarat Congress have tested positive for Covid-19 and I pray for their early recovery.”

While MLA Kalariya has been hospitalised in Rajkot, Maulin Vaishnav has been admitted to Banker’s Hospital in Vadodara. Raval, being asymptomatic, has been put under home quarantine.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Vaishnav said, “I got myself admitted in Banker’s Hospital on Tuesday and my reports came out yesterday. I am stable now.”

Chirag Kalariya is the first MLA from Saurashtra region to test positive for Covid-19.

Dr Mitesh Bhanderi, Chief District Health Officer of Rajkot, confirmed that the 42-year-old MLA from Jamjodhpur Assembly constituency in Jamnagar district had tested positive on Wednesday night.

Kalariya said that he had come in close contact with Solanki during the Rajya Sabha elections in Gandhinagar last week.

“After the Rajya Sabha election, I had stayed in Gandhinagar for two days. On Wednesday, I felt I had a temperature. So, instead of returning to my home in Jamjodhpur, I directly went to a hospital and my samples returned positive… However, the fever has since gone and I am feeling normal now,” Kalariya told The Indian Express on Thursday evening, adding he had got himself admitted to a private hospital in Mavdi area of Rajkot.