Stung by the fact that several public representatives and political leaders, including the chief minister and three ministers, have been infected by COVID-19, the Madhya Pradesh government on Thursday announced a ban on political programmes including rallies, protests and public meetings until August 14.
In addition, ministers have been barred from undertaking public tours till that date and ordered not to meet more than five persons at one time at their homes too. They have been advised to undertake meetings through videoconferencing and hold virtual rallies, if need be.
Similarly, all officials—including the chief minister, ministers, public representatives and senior administrative and police officials—of the state government has been asked to mandatorily use mask or scarves to cover their nose and mouth while in public. Any violation of the guidelines will attract a fine and registration of a case, or both, it was decided during a COVID-19 review meeting presided over by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Thursday.
The decision came on the day when the COVID-19 tally in Madhya Pradesh went up to 30,968, with 834 new cases in the past 24 hours. The death toll rose to 857 with 13 new deaths in this period. Capital Bhopal, which has been under complete lockdown since July 25, reported 233 new cases—the highest single-day spike till now—to take the tally there to 6,105.
While sharing the decisions of the meeting, Home Minister Narottam Mishra, donning a mask for the first time in public (though it was at his chin most of the time), called upon all political parties not to engage in public political activities till August 14.
However, Mishra said total lockdown in new places or extension of lockdowns have been ruled out and it will be resorted to only in dire circumstances. During the review meeting that he presided over from his hospital room, Chouhan said that COVID-19 could be reined in only through mandatory use of masks and following of social distancing norms.
Chouhan said during the meeting that preventive measures like wearing of masks and social distancing were the only way to defeat COVID-19 as lockdown hits the economy hard and is not always the option.
The stringent decisions of the state government come after the chief minister, three ministers, state BJP president and organising general secretary of the party, apart from other public representatives and leaders, were detected to be COVID-19 positive during the course of the past week.
Several ministers, public representatives and officers, including Home Minister Mishra himself, were often found to be flouting the mask and social distancing norms and were continuing to hold public programmes even after their colleagues were reported to be positive. This fact had come in for sharp criticism from the opposition Congress and even from the common public.
The banning of political programmes and public tours by ministers assumes importance given the fact that bypolls to 27 Assembly seats are in the pipeline in the state and as many as 14 ministers in the Chouhan cabinet have to fight these bypolls to retain their posts.
Both major political parties, mainly the ruling BJP, were engaged in hectic political activities for most of July, holding rallies, mass contact programmes, protests and other initiatives like induction of new members in the party.
One such minister, Tulsiram Silawat, had been holding mass contact programmes in his constituency in Sanwer (Indore) even after Chouhan and another minister with whom Silawat had attended a cabinet meeting on July 22 tested positive. Silawat was himself found to be infected on July 29.
Earlier, at least half-dozen MLAs, including one of the Congress, had tested positive for COVID-19 in the state.
