SAD-BJP want discussion on COVID-19 in Assembly

The Shiromani Akali Dal legislative wing leader Sharanjit Singh Dhillon said the motion had been moved because the Congress-led government had “failed” to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic effectively. In a statement here, Dhillon said since Chief Minister Amarinder Singh seemed “helpless” and had himself admitted that COVID-19 cases would increase to one lakh by next month, there was an urgent need for an effective strategy to tackle the pandemic.

The SAD-BJP on Wednesday moved a motion calling for discussion on the rise in coronavirus cases and deaths in Punjab in the upcoming Assembly session. The Shiromani Akali Dal legislative wing leader Sharanjit Singh Dhillon said the motion had been moved because the Congress-led government had “failed” to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic effectively.

In a statement here, Dhillon said since Chief Minister Amarinder Singh seemed “helpless” and had himself admitted that COVID-19 cases would increase to one lakh by next month, there was an urgent need for an effective strategy to tackle the pandemic. People could not be left to die due to the “negligence” of the Congress government, he said. In the motion submitted to the Vidhan Sabha secretariat, the SAD-BJP legislators have said that Punjab presently has one of the highest COVID-19 fatality rates of 2.5 per cent against the national average of 1.6 per cent. It said the state was "slipping" on testing instead of ramping it up and had “failed” to start plasma therapy. The legislators said this situation had arisen because the Congress government had “concentrated on hype by spending crores on advertisements instead of taking needed steps at the ground level”.

They said adequate infrastructure had not been “created” in government hospitals due to which patients were going to private hospitals for treatment. They also claimed that the government had “failed” to regulate the functioning of private hospitals with cases of “blatant” overcharging coming to the fore. The SAD has also submitted a resolution in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha that seeks a direction from the House to the state government to “take all necessary legal, constitutional and political measures to ensure the implementation of the nationally and internationally accepted Riparian principle with regard to the river waters prior to the consideration of any question relating the construction of the Sutlej Yamuna Link canal.” The session of the 117-member Punjab Vidhan Sabha will be held on August 28.