Modi terminates West Bengal visit, to hold high-level meetings on growing Covid-19 spread

On Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced through his Twitter account that he would not address election rallies in West Bengal scheduled for Friday, instead he will be convening high-level meetings in Delhi to discuss the country's escalating coronavirus spread.

The Prime Minister tweeted, "Tomorrow, will be chairing high-level meetings to review the prevailing COVID-19 situation. Due to that, I would not be going to West Bengal."

Tomorrow, will be chairing high-level meetings to review the prevailing COVID-19 situation. Due to that, I would not be going to West Bengal.

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 22, 2021

Modi was supposed to address four election meetings in the state of West Bengal on Friday.

Amit Shah, the Home Minister, also put on hold his campaign today, discontinuing two of his three Bengal meetings in order to attend a Covid meeting in Delhi.

Public rallies held by political leaders in West Bengal were attracting huge hoardes of people which was worrying especially considering the escalating spread of Covid-19. Many of Congress, BJP and TMC leaders in order to curb the crowding and eventual spread of infections cancelled many of these public campaigns and rallies.

Opposition leaders had criticized the Prime Minister on focusing more on the election campaign instead of the pertinent issue of containing the worsening Covid-19 situation in the nation.

PM Modi convened a high-level meeting on Thursday to assess the condition of oxygen supply amid reports of shortages from hospitals around the nation.

India is now experiencing a deadly second outbreak of Covid-19, with a record number of new cases being registered every day. According to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), India has reported 314,835 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, including a staggering 2104 single-day Covid-19 fatalities.