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‘Corona is gone’, says Bengal BJP chief at public rally. Then rebuts himself
As the video of Dilip Ghosh’s ‘corona is gone’ went viral, pat came a barb from the Trinamool, accusing him of valuing vote bank politics “above human lives”.
“Corona is gone”, declared BJP’s Bengal unit chief Dilip Ghosh at a public rally in South Bengal on Thursday, adding that it was done to block BJP rallies. The shocking comment has come at a time at a time when the country has seen record jumps in daily Covid-19 cases. In a clarification on Friday, the leader said his speech on corona was taken “out of context” and in a reversal of stance said “corona is still here”.
As the video of Ghosh’s earlier statement went viral, pat came a barb from the Trinamool, accusing him of valuing vote bank politics “above human lives”.
“Corona is gone. Didimoni (Mamata Banerjee) is just pretending and imposing lockdown so that the BJP can’t hold rallies,” said Ghosh while addressing a gathering at Nadia in south Bengal on Thursday.
The West Bengal government had imposed lockdown on six days in August. In September, three days of lockdown were announced out of which the final one on September 12 has been cancelled because of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test on Sunday.
“While the whole of India is still fighting tirelessly against the deadly #COVID19 pandemic, @DilipGhoshBJP announces “Corona is Over”! Evidently, he values vote bank politics much above human lives. The wit of @BJP4Bengal President is horrifying!” the TMC tweeted on Friday.
Till September 10, West Bengal had recorded 1,93,175 cases with 3771 deaths. There are more than 23,000 active cases in the state.
While Ghosh had made the statement at a gathering in Nadia, the party’s president JP Nadda had accused Mamata Banerjee administration of timing the Covid-19 lockdown to coincide with the launch of the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya on August 5 and earlier lifting it for Eid.
“By imposing the lockdown, she [Banerjee] crushed the wishes of crores of people. It is a different matter that the lockdown was lifted [for] Eid on July 31…This is a politics of appeasement. This politics of vote bank appeasement needs to be exposed,” Nadda had said in his address to BJP workers via video-conferencing yesterday.
The TMC had countered it, saying that imposing lockdown or cancelling it had nothing to do with a program that is held outside the state (Ayodhya is in Uttar Pradesh).
“Lockdown is imposed or cancelled based on administrative convenience and on the advice of experts,” Saugata Roy, TMC lawmaker had said.
A day after his Covid-19 remarks, Ghosh however said that he was quoted out of context and that Covid-19 is still there.
“My speech was 25 minutes long. Only a few seconds were taken and I was quoted out of the context. Covid-19 is still there and the TMC can’t tackle it. But I stand by my statement that the TMC is imposing lockdown for political gains,” he said on Friday.
This is, however, not the first time that Ghosh has courted a controversy. In November 2019, a video went viral in which Ghosh had said that milk of Indian cows is laced with gold and that’s why it was yellowish in colour.
