Fadnavis: Maharashtra government suffers from ‘action paralysis’

Claiming that the number of tests for Covid-19 in Mumbai has reduced drastically despite there being a rise in cases, Leader of Opposition and former chief minister

Claiming that the number of tests for Covid-19 in Mumbai has reduced drastically despite there being a rise in cases, Leader of Opposition and former chief minister (CM) Devendra Fadnavis said the Maharashtra government is suffering from “action paralysis”.

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“The Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government is not only suffering from policy paralysis but also action paralysis. There is no coordination among the three ruling parties, coordination is also lacking between the government and the administration. This has affected their decision making,” said Fadnavis while addressing an online press conference on Saturday.

Fadnavis also alleged that testing for Covid-19 in Mumbai has dropped drastically over the past few days when the number of patients increased to a large extent.

He said that testing in Mumbai compared to state figures has dropped to 27% as on May 31, from 56% on May 1.

“This is a serious lapse and the government should immediately increase the number of tests being conducted in the city,” he said.

The BJP leader criticised the government for failing to implement its own announcements. “They announced plans to reserve 80% of the beds in private hospitals for the poor, but in reality, the acquisition has not happened from the [hospitals associated with] ‘influential’ people. The treatment announced under Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Jan Arogya Yojana, the medical insurance scheme extended to the entire population, is not applicable in many Mumbai hospitals,” he said.

The former CM also blamed the government for the lack of personal protection equipment (PPE) kits for frontline workers. “The initial stock of the kits was procured from corporate houses under the corporate social responsibility (CSR) drive. To shrug off responsibility, the state has blamed the Centre for inadequate supply of PPE kits,” he said.

Lashing out at the Shiv Sena, Fadnavis said that the party was inconsistent in its political stand. “Sometimes they praise the Prime Minister, while the next moment they criticise him. Similarly, they attack the Maharashtra governor over some issue and bow before him the next moment,” he said.

He also demanded that an adequate relief package be announced for citizens affected by Cyclone Nisarga this week. “The government should look beyond the standing NDRF (National Disaster Response Force) norms for the relief package for the natural calamity. We had given relief three times more than the norms to the Sangli-Kolhapur flood-affected people last year. A similar policy should be allotted by the government for the cyclone-affected people.”