BHOPAL: Former minister Jaiwardhan Singh has kicked up a storm over adjournment of the Winter session of the House. He has made a post on social media that only eight people of the Vidhan Sabha have been afflicted with the coronavirus.
At the time of putting off the session, parliamentary affairs minister Narottam Mishra said that nearly 60 people, including employees and legislators, had tested positive for the disease. Therefore, the session of the House was put off, Mishra had said.
Nevertheless, in his post, Jaiwardhan said the news of 34 people being afflicted with the disease was found to be untrue. In fact, only eight people tested positive for the disease, and they were four employees of the secretariat, three legislators and the husband of an MLA, Jaiwardhan said.
He said, “The question is why has fake news been made the basis for adjournment of the House? Speaker of the Chhattisgarh Assembly Charandas Mahant tested positive, but the House continued to function.” The government had adjourned the House without examining the ground situation, citing a piece of fake news, he said, and the pro tem Speaker must give a clarification on it.
Leader of the Opposition Kamal Nath and many former ministers were present at an all-party meeting where the decision to put off the Winter session was taken. Nevertheless, except for former minister Govind Singh, nobody objected to the decision. The session was postponed with the nod of Nath.
Principal secretary of the Vidhan Sabha AP Singh said a list of people suffering from the disease was available with the secretariat. Forty employees working in the MLAs’ rest house had tested positive and there were eight employees of the Vidhan Sabha secretariat, besides, he added. As a few legislators had also been diagnosed with the disease, the number of afflicted people had reached 50, Singh said. Therefore, the Winter session of the House was postponed after an all-party meeting, he added.
Chief medical and health officer Prabhakar Tiwari said he had information that 40 workers and two legislators had been afflicted with the disease. The list of people suffering from corona could not be made public, he said.
