Mamata cancels all her ‘big rallies’ in Kolkata over Covid fears – Times of India

KOLKATA: Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday cancelled all her “big rallies and meetings” in Kolkata in view of the huge spike in Covid cases and urged her party leaders to scale down their campaigns in the city in the run-up to the two phases of polls (April 26 and 29) that involve seats in Kolkata proper.
Speaking to a private TV channel, the Trinamool Congress chief said she would hold only one meeting — at Beadon Street in north Kolkata on April 26. She also said that she would hold fewer public rallies in the districts in less time, where “cases are lower”.
Earlier in the day, Banerjee wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, flagging doctors’ concerns on “extremely scarce and uncertain” supplies of two key Covid medicines — Remdesivir and Tocilizumab — to Bengal, and urging him to look into the “scarce and erratic” flow of vaccines to the state and ensure steady oxygen supply.
In the interview, Banerjee said the state administration was trying to ramp up its Covid beds by 20% and said asymptomatic patients should remain in home isolation, unless advised otherwise by doctors. She said the state was trying to increase its safe-home facilities for mildly symptomatic patients and advising people to be “very cautious and not to panic.”
Stressing she had urged the Election Commission for clubbing the last three poll phases, she took a dig at BJP: “To fight me, they are making Bengal suffer.”
Banerjee, who held a roadshow on Sunday, said: “At least the last two phases could be held in one.”
In her message to the PM, Banerjee identified three areas that required the PM’s intervention to “to scale up our capabilities to tackle the pandemic on a war footing.” She stressed on vaccination first, saying it was of “top importance.” Arguing that “focused and aggressive vaccination is extremely important,” particularly in Kolkata due to its “high population density”, she said “unfortunately”, the supply of vaccines from the Centre has been scarce and erratic, which is “negatively affecting our vaccination programme.”
The CM said Bengal, which was among the “best performers” in the vaccination programme, was “now suffering” due to vaccine supply uncertainty from the Centre. She said the state needed 5.4 crore doses to vaccinate 2.7 crore people and urged the PM to intervene “to ensure that the state gets its requirement of vaccine doses fulfilled at the earliest.” Over 87 lakh people have been vaccinated in Bengal, and over 75 lakh of them have got their first dose.
Banerjee’s second concern was the fast-depleting stocks of Covid medicines. Banerjee told the PM that this issue has been a “matter of grave concern” for doctors here. “We need around 6,000 vials of Remdesivir and 1,000 vials of Tocilizumab daily. However, at present only 1,000 vials of Remdesivir are available daily and no fresh supply of Tocilizumab is coming. It may kindly be seen that the relevant authorities step up their efforts to ensure steady supply of these most essential medicines as soon as possible,” she wrote in her two-page letter.
Banerjee’s third concern was regarding oxygen. She said the supply of oxygen “must be assured and certain.” The CM said SAIL has been meeting up “our need for the moment, (and) we will be grateful if you kindly instruct them too for ensuring steady supplies.” She also stressed that Bengal was “willing to extend its resources to the fullest in tandem with the Centre to tackle the pandemic the country is facing now and overcome it.”
In the same letter, the CM also reminded Modi of a letter she had sent on February 24, seeking permission to buy vaccines from state funds to launch a free mass vaccination drive in Bengal. “However, the state has not received the requisite clearance yet. In the meantime, the number of cases in the state has also begun to increase sharply, particularly in view of the coming of a large numbers of outsiders to the state for election campaign and other purposes at the behest of some political parties,” she wrote, echoing what she has been regularly saying in her public meetings.