Thackerays at home while Maharashtra fights alone as COVID19 cases increase exponentially across state

The Tatva Staff July 18, 2020

Untitled 1 — Almost half of India's deaths hail from Maharashtra and one-third of cases as well but despite knowing the gravity of the situation, Uddhav Thackeray has been out of sight.

Maharashtra continues to be the most affected state by the Chinese Coronavirus. Almost 30% of total cases in the country can attributed alone to the state of Maharashtra. In such a situation, you expect chief minister of the state firmly taking control of situation and touring the state to keep officials on toes.

Instead what we are seeing? Since the pandemic started and lockdown was announced CM Uddhav Thackeray has hardly moved out of his private residence. He did come out twice, once on a visit to cyclone ‘Nisarga’ affected Raigad district and once for government Mahapooja of Lord Vitthal, at Pandharpur on the occasion of Ashadi Ekadashi.

Barring these two occasions he has seldom ventured out of Mumbai, and hardly even gone to ‘Mantralaya’, which is Maharashtra state secretariat having offices of all ministers and senior bureaucrats.

Maharashtra’s people have only heard him through his Facebook live sessions, and Twitter posts done by the official handle of the Chief Minister’s office. He hasn’t been seen anywhere on ground visiting hospitals or other cities in Maharashtra reviewing the situation.

However, to their credit, health minister Rajesh Tope and deputy CM Ajit Pawar are on ground, working as they should be in this situation. Just like his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal, Uddhav Thackeray doesn’t handle a single portfolio in Maharashtra Government and just presides the state as Chief Minister.

With the single-day spike of 8,308 new COVID-19 cases in Maharashtra, the tally of patients in the state mounted to 2,92,589 on Friday, the health department said. This is the third time that the number of single-day cases has breached the 8,000-mark in the state.

The virus has claimed 258 lives on Friday alone, taking the state’s death toll to 11,452, a statement from the health department said. As Pune inches towards the 50,000-mark in total Covid-19 cases, despite the strain, medical teams are holding forth.

In a scathing criticism of the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra, Siddharth Shirole, BJP MLA from the Shivajinagar constituency in Pune, said that the Maharashtra government has left Pune to fend for itself from the surging coronavirus spread. He has accused the government of gross negligence which has pushed the city on the cusp of a medical calamity.