West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee is expected to skip a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi which is scheduled to be held today to discuss the current status of the Covid-19 pandemic in the nation, news agency ANI reported on Thursday. Instead of the state chief minister, West Bengal's chief secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay is likely to attend the meeting, the news agency also reported.
PM Modi will interact with chief ministers of all states and union territories on Thursday as the country is witnessing a sharp spike in daily Covid-19 cases. They will be discussing the Covid-19 situation and the vaccination strategy via video conferencing.
Banerjee's decision to skip the Covid-19 meet with PM Modi comes in the backdrop of ongoing assembly elections in West Bengal in which her ruling Trinamool Congress party (TMC) is engaged in a fierce battle with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Also Read | How India can overcome the Covid-19 surge
Voting for 294-member assembly elections is underway in West Bengal. It is taking place in eight phases and three phases have already taken place. It will conclude on April 29 and the counting will take place on May 2.
{{/usCountry}}Voting for 294-member assembly elections is underway in West Bengal. It is taking place in eight phases and three phases have already taken place. It will conclude on April 29 and the counting will take place on May 2.
{{/usCountry}}Meanwhile, India is reeling under the impact of the second wave of Covid-19 during which it is seeing a spike in infection worse than the previous surge. On Thursday, the country registered 126,789 fresh cases in the last 24 hours, the Union ministry of health and family welfare’s (MoHFW) dashboard showed.
Before this, the highest spike was on April 5 when it reported as many as 103,558 cases. On April 7, the nation saw a rise of 115,736 cases in a single day.
The country’s infection tally has risen to 12,928,574, the third-highest globally, behind the United States and Brazil respectively.