AAP-BJP join hands to fight COVID in Delhi; Congress says too late

After a meeting with Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday, Delhi’s ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the main opposition BJP said COVID-19 needs to be fought keeping political differences aside, while the Congress hit out at the Centre and the Delhi government for the pandemic surge in the city.

Leaders of the BJP, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Congress and the BSP attended the all-party meeting with the Home Minister, who had on Sunday announced a slew of measures, including ramping up of testing facilities, after holding a discussion with the Delhi government and the civic bodies on the coronavirus crisis.

Pitching for political unity to inspire confidence among the people, Shah appealed to the representatives of the four parties to urge their workers to ensure implementation of the Delhi government’s coronavirus guidelines on the ground.

“These steps will enhance public trust and the COVID-19 situation in Delhi will improve soon,” Shah said.

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All parties should forget their political differences and work together for the people of Delhi, he was quoted as saying in the meeting by a home ministry spokesperson.

Shah briefed the parties about the decisions taken by the government after he held two separate meetings with Delhi LG Anil Baijal, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan and the mayors and commissioners of Delhi’s three municipal corporations to strengthen the strategy to fight the coronavirus on Sunday.

There have been frequent run-ins between the LG and the Kejriwal government, which has accused him of acting at the behest of the BJP-led central government.

“Shah called on the parties to mobilise their party workers to help implement the decisions taken by the central government for the welfare of the people of Delhi,” the spokesperson said.

“He appealed all the parties to rise above political differences in the interest of the people. Political unity will create confidence among the public and lead to an improvement in the pandemic situation in the capital,” he said.

Shah said, “We all have to stand united under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in this fight against the pandemic.”

The home minister said COVID-19 testing in Delhi has to be increased by adopting new techniques.

However, holding the BJP-ruled Centre and AAP government in Delhi responsible for the surge in cases Delhi Congress president Anil Kumar, also present in the meeting said, “The meeting was an exercise in mutual back-slapping by both the BJP and AAP though both the Central and Delhi governments have miserably failed in tackling the COVID pandemic.”

He also said that the meeting should have been held 84 days ago, on March 23 when the lockdown was implemented.

According to him, Kumar gave 11 suggestions at the all-party meeting including universal testing.

Isolation centres at school and college hostels, deploying final-year medical, nursing, and pharmacy students in fighting the virus, ₹10,000 compensation to coronavirus patients and those living in containment zones, and opening three Delhi government hospitals nearing completion, were his other suggestions.

He also added that the Delhi Congress will stage a protest against BJP and AAP for the failure of their governments in tackling the pandemic in the city, across 1,000 locations on Tuesday.

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After the Sunday meeting, Shah had announced that COVID-19 tests would be started at every polling station in the containment zones and a comprehensive house-to-house health survey would be conducted in the hotspots for contact tracing.

He had said testing for coronavirus will be doubled in Delhi over the next two days and subsequently tripled.

In view of a shortage of beds for coronavirus patients in Delhi, the Modi government has decided to immediately provide 500 railway coaches, which will be equipped with all facilities, Shah had said.

The pandemic has infected over 41,000 in the national capital so far and claimed more than 1,300 lives.

(With inputs from agencies.)