Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan slammed Congress leader Kamal Nath's "Indian variant" of COVID-19 remark and questioned the silence of Congress leader Sonia Gandhi.
Chouhan told ANI, "Former Chief Minister Kamal Nath is trying to break the morale of India. Do words like 'Mera Bharat Covid', 'Indian corona' suit Congress, Kamal Nath, and Sonia Gandhi? Kamal Nath ji, you are doing cheap politics in the time of crisis." "You cannot break the morale of Indians living in other countries with such statements," he said.
"Isn't this statement seditious? I want to ask Sonia Gandhi if she will take any action against the leader who made such a statement," Chouhan said.
"We are working day and night to get the state out of these troubled times and you are doing dirty politics with Covid-19 deaths. Each death is a cause for sorrow but did not any deaths occur in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. Have not any deaths occurred in foreign countries?" asked Chouhan.
"The spread of Covid-19 in the state is under control," the Chief Minister said and then informed that Madhya Pradesh recorded 3,375 COVID-19 positive cases, 7,587 recoveries in the last 24 hours and the positivity rate dropped to only 4.26 per cent.
Days after the BJP alleged that a "Congress toolkit" referred to the new mutant of coronavirus as "Indian variant", former Chief Minister and Congress leader Kamal Nath launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying that he is afraid of "Indian variant" of COVID-19.
The Leader of Opposition in Madhya Pradesh Assembly claimed that over one lakh people died in the state during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"It started with Chinese corona. Now it's Indian variant corona. The Prime Minister and President are afraid of the Indian variant. A country like Singapore has banned us. Somebody told me that a student who got admission to a college there, his admission was cancelled. They told him that he was coming from India and might bring the Indian variant with him," the former chief minister had told ANI.
