Another Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader from Pune district announced on social media on Tuesday that he had tested positive for COVID-19.
In a Facebook post, Rahul Kul, the BJP MLA from Daund, said while he had tested positive, his close kin and office staff had tested negative.
Sources said Mr. Kul was ‘asymptomatic’ and had chosen to quarantine himself at his home in Daund.
“On the doctor’s advice, I had done a Covid-19 test and the result came ‘positive’. My condition is stable and I have quarantined myself at home. Despite having taken all requisite precautions, as an elected representative, I had to meet a number of people in order to coordinate, monitor and supervise efforts taken at the local level to combat the Covid-19 pandemic,” the MLA said in his post.
The development comes days after another Pune BJP leader and Pune Mayor, Murlidhar Mohol, had announced on Twitter on Saturday last week that he had tested positive. Eight members of the Mohol family, too, have subsequently tested positive.
A local Shiv Sena leader, who is a corporator in the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC), tested positive as well after his reports came on late Monday night.
On Saturday last week, Datta Sane, a local leader from the Nationalist Congress Party and a corporator in the PCMC, had succumbed to the virus.
Earlier, two BJP legislators — one from Pimpri-Chinchwad and one from Pune city — had tested positive for COVID-19.
Meanwhile, the district reported 581 new COVID-19 cases till Tuesday evening as its total cases breached the 30,000-mark to reach 30,425.
Of these, 18,395 people had been discharged while there were only 11,135 active cases at present, Pune Divisional Commissioner Deepak Mhaisekar said. As many as 494 of the active cases in the district are in a critical condition.
With five more fatalities, Pune’s death toll shot to 895.
Given that the district has been seeing an average daily surge of 1,000 cases, the bulk of which were from Pune city, Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) Commissioner Shekhar Gaikwad said the city could well see 20,000 new cases by the end of July.
Till date, 142 people from among the PMC staff have been affected with the virus, of whom 70 have recovered. As many as 160 policemen in the district have tested positive for COVID-19 till date, of whom 43 are presently in the hospital while three have succumbed to the virus.
The administration on Monday had warned of stringent measures against errant citizens and tightening the lockdown if the curve did not flatten soon.
Meanwhile, the death toll in Solapur district — the worst-afflicted after Pune in the division — has climbed to 304, with eight more fatalities reported on Tuesday.
The death toll in Pune division — which consists of Pune, Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur and Solapur districts — has now reached 1,281.
Mr. Mhaisekar said Pune division’s total case tally has reached 36,671, of whom 13,342 are active cases, while 22,048 people have been discharged till date.
Solapur reported a surge of 160 new cases to take its total cases to 3,371, of whom 1,242 are active. Satara recorded 38 fresh cases as its total case tally rose to 1,372, of whom 504 are active cases. The district’s death toll stands at 55.
Sangli reported 25 new cases to take its tally to 520, of whom 237 are active ones, while with 17 new cases, Kolhapur’s total cases stand at 983, of whom 224 are active.
While Sangli has reported 13 fatalities thus far, Kolhapur has recorded 14 deaths.