PM's public gathering in Tripura caused Covid surge: Left parties

Agartala, Jan 17: The Opposition CPI-M led Left Front on Sunday claimed that the public meeting of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 4 in Agartala has caused a massive surge in the Covid-19 cases in Tripura.

"The Central and state governments are aware about the Omicron, the new variant of Covid-19 creating havoc across the country. In this situation the PM's public rally has further aggravated the situation in Tripura," Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) Tripura state Secretary Jitendra Chaudhury told the media.

Chaudhury, accompanied by CPI leader Ranjit Majumder, Forward Bloc leader Dulal Deb and Revolutionary Socialist Party leader Dipak Deb on Sunday met Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb and suggested several measures to curb the massive spread of the infectious disease.

The Left leaders said that the Tripura government has not yet installed the machines for the genome sequence analysis of the Omicron suspect samples of the people who would the tested positive for the new variant and such lacunae would make the situation and required treatment more critical.

Chaudhury, also a CPI-M central committee member, said that thousands of people are coming to Tripura by train from different parts of the country including Delhi and they deboarded in various stations where there is no testing facilities to detect the passengers infected by the Covid-19.

"However, responding to our demands, the Chief Minister directed the officials to take crtain measures to deal with the situation," he said.

The Left leaders also demanded compensation of at least Rs 10 lakh to the poor families of the Covid-19 victims, and give various assistance including financial support and free food grains to the members of the poor families affected by the disease.