Railways minister Piyush Goyal on Saturday urged everyone to follow Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who wore a white, homemade mask during his meeting with the chief ministers to discuss the country’s next step in the fight against Covid-19.
Piyush Goyal tweeted after photographs from PM Modi’s video conference with the chief ministers showed them wearing masks.
“Leading by example, PM @NarendraModi ji wears a homemade face cover during a video conference meeting on #COVID__19 with the Chief Ministers of the nation,” the minister tweeted.
“Let us follow suit and protect ourselves and our fellow citizens by wearing face covers,” he said.
The chief ministers, including West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee, Delhi’s Arvind Kejriwal, Rajasthan’s Ashok Gehlot, Karnataka’s BS Yediyurappa, Maharashtra’s Uddhav Thackeray were also seen in masks during the virtual meeting with the Prime Minister.
{{/usCountry}}The chief ministers, including West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee, Delhi’s Arvind Kejriwal, Rajasthan’s Ashok Gehlot, Karnataka’s BS Yediyurappa, Maharashtra’s Uddhav Thackeray were also seen in masks during the virtual meeting with the Prime Minister.
{{/usCountry}}PM Modi is now expected to take a call on whether to lift or extend the lockdown, which he announced on March 24. The three-week restriction is supposed to end on April 14.
“I am always available. Any chief minister can speak to me and give suggestions (on Covid-19) anytime. We should stand together shoulder-to-shoulder,” Modi is understood to have said during the meeting.
Most of the chief ministers, including Arvind Kejriwal and Punjab’s Amarinder Singh, suggested during the meeting that the lockdown should be enforced beyond April 14.
The Delhi chief minister said during the meeting he would need two weeks to make the national capital’s containment zones airtight after each and every contact of the Tablighi Jamaat has been verified and quarantined.
Delhi will follow the Centre’s decision on the lockdown, he said.
The Prime Minister’s video conference with chief ministers came on a day when India reported more than 7400 cases of the coronavirus disease and 239 fatalities.