COVID-19 MENACE
GUWAHATI: Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal urged the representatives of various political parties to put up a united fight against COVID-19. He made a call to them to engage their functionaries to generate awareness about COVID-19 and government guidelines at the grassroots level, apart from promoting COVID-appropriate behaviour among people to overcome the pandemic.
A meeting of all political parties under the chairmanship of the Chief Minister was held at Assam Administrative Staff College here on Thursday to discuss the current COVID-19 situation in the State. The meeting was attended by leaders of the BJP, INC, AGP, AJP, UPPL, RJD, CPI (ML), CPI (M), Raijor Dal, NPP and the National Republican Congress.
The Chief Minister said that the government adopted a five-fold strategy – testing, tracing, treatment, COVID appropriate behaviour and vaccination – to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. He said that paramount importance has been given to protect the lives of people from the virus, and accordingly appropriate guidelines are formulated. He observed that success in the fight against COVID-19 heavily depends on people adhering to the SOPs issued by the government.
He also called upon all political parties to work with the Team Assam spirit saying that the Assam government geared up to provide the best possible treatment to people.
BJP president Ranjeet Kumar Dass, Congress president Ripun Bora, AGP president Atul Bora, AJP general secretary Jagadish Bhuyan, representatives of CPI(ML), CPI(M), UPPL, Raijor Dal, NPP, National Republican Congress also shared their views at the meeting.
The political parties appreciated the steps taken by the State government in the first wave as well as this time also to combat the virus. They assured all support and cooperation to the government in the fight against the pandemic. They also made several suggestions including speedy vaccination, COVID test of all officials and political party representatives to be engaged in duty for counting of votes on May 2, measures to protect the interests of the lower middle class and daily labourers affected by the pandemic, monitoring of private health institutions offering COVID treatment, availability of adequate health facilities etc., a press release said.