Congress minister Shashi Tharoor on Thursday “inaugurated” and took part in a protest organised by the Indian Youth Congress in Kerala against the state government’s handling of the Covid-19 situation.
The protest took place in front of the secretariat at the state capital Thiruvananthapuram a day after Kerala reported a single-day count of 31,445 Covid-19 cases on Wednesday.
Tharoor alleged that the government charged “unaffordable” fees to patients. Taking to Twitter, the Thiruvananthapuram parliamentarian said, “Inaugurated an @iyc protest in front of the Secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram this morning against #Covid mismanagement in the state. Kerala is in the ICU — symbolised by a patient & a doctor (who happens to be an IYC member), while the Govt charges unaffordable fees to patients!,” sharing pictures from the protest site.
In a subsequent tweet, Tharoor also shared a video from the protest in which he was seen inspecting a man lying down on a stretcher with a stethoscope. The man was mimicking “patient Kerala,” Tharoor noted in the tweet, in what was termed the “roadside ICU.” He shared the video with the tweet saying “At the @IYC protest, checking the health of the patient Kerala in the roadside ICU.”
{{/usCountry}}In a subsequent tweet, Tharoor also shared a video from the protest in which he was seen inspecting a man lying down on a stretcher with a stethoscope. The man was mimicking “patient Kerala,” Tharoor noted in the tweet, in what was termed the “roadside ICU.” He shared the video with the tweet saying “At the @IYC protest, checking the health of the patient Kerala in the roadside ICU.”
{{/usCountry}}Meanwhile, several people who reacted to the tweets on the microblogging platform expressed their concerns about the protest which had gathered a significant number of people at one place. They said that the protest was not ideal during the prevailing Covid-19 situation in the state. Some others had also pointed to people in the video who were not wearing their face masks properly and also said that no physical distancing norms were followed in the protest. It could be seen in the video that a few in the crowd were not wearing their masks properly.
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On Wednesday, Kerala’s total confirmed cases tally reached 3,883,429 after 31,445 people tested positive for the disease on the day. Further, the death toll reached 19,972 following 215 more fatalities, a bulletin from the state government showed.
The state has 170,829 active cases as of 8am on Thursday, which, according to the Union ministry of health and family welfare’s data, was more than half of the national tally of active cases. The data also showed that it was the highest among all other states in the country.