Govt should brace itself for possible third wave: Hooda

Sounding an alarm bell, leader of opposition in Haryana Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Monday said the state government should start preparing for the possible third wave of coronavirus infection

Sounding an alarm bell, leader of opposition in Haryana Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Monday said the state government should start preparing for the possible third wave of coronavirus infection. Hooda said emphasis should be now on strengthening the health services infrastructure in Haryana.

Bhupinder Singh Hooda (HT FIle)

At a press briefing on Monday, the former chief minister said a lot of planning will have to be done to handle the post-corona conditions such as inflation, recession, poverty and unemployment. “The unemployment rate in Haryana has reached 35.1% and every third person of the state is unemployed. The government should lend a helping hand to those whose business has been affected during the pandemic,” he said.

Hooda demanded that government should give ₹5 lakh each to the families of the people who lost their lives due to Covid.

“Pension should also be announced for families with no bread-earner left in their family. But for this, the government must first collect the correct figures of those who died. It is clear that the number of people who died from the pandemic is much higher than the numbers put out by the government,” he said.

Hooda said he did not agree with the statement of chief minister ML Khattar who said the government had slowed down the pace of vaccination. “Instead of decreasing the pace of vaccination, it needs to be increased,” he said. Hooda said the government had failed in containing the pandemic and the state health minister himself issued a statement saying that the situation has become so bad that the army will have to be called. The BJP MP from Bhiwani-Mahendragarh had also spoken about the collapse of the health system, Hooda said.

Responding to Khattar’s remarks that a letter written by Hooda to him did not deserve a reply, the former chief minister said that as the leader of Opposition, it was his duty to raise people’s problems before the government. “What I had asked were not personal questions but concerns of the people who were battling the virus without beds, medicines and oxygen. But the chief minister did not answer any of them because the government does not have any answers. The CM instead is resorting to political commentary to hide the government’s failure,” Hooda said. “In this hour of crisis, we are ready to cooperate with the government for the welfare of the people. But the CM refused to even call an all-party meeting and is now resorting to passing personal remarks,” he said.