Trinamool Congress senior leader Aroop Biswas on Thursday alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah had ignored the warnings of the second wave of COVID-19 by focussing more on winning the West Bengal assembly polls for which the coronavirus situation has deteriorated in the country. He also claimed that the BJP-led Central government lacked foresight and did not take any action to combat the second wave of infections due to which "the country has turned into a death bed". 

"The BJP does not think beyond its immediate agenda. For winning elections in a state, it did not pay heed to the warnings of a second wave. The prime minister and the Union home minister were concentrating more on West Bengal elections all these months," Biswas, who is also the state power minister, told reporters. 

The Trinamool Congress (TMC) government was doing its best to cope with the pandemic in West Bengal by taking all possible measures, he said. 

Biswas also criticised the Centre for not setting up a vaccine manufacturing unit in Bengal as requested by the Mamata Banerjee government. 

On the power situation in the state, the minister said, to ensure that there was no disruption in supply due to norwesters and gale, "we will ensure availability of staff to work 24x7 for maintenance and repair work by adhering to COVID-19 guidelines," he said.