“We can celebrate the festival later. Let us give priority to the life and health of our citizens,” the Maharashtra chief minister appealed.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Monday appealed to political parties to immediately stop agitations, meetings and other events to avoid crowding in view of the slight increase in the number of daily COVID-19 cases in the state.
“We may celebrate the festival later. Let us give priority to the life and health of our citizens. The situation may get out of hand given the spike in daily cases,” Mr Thackeray said in a statement.
“Who would want to ban festivals and religious programs? But people’s lives are important,” he said.
The Chief Minister said that the upcoming festive days are important and challenging.
He said the onus is on the political parties to ensure that things do not go out of control.
The CM further said, “The third wave of COVID-19 is at our doorstep”.
“Kerala is increasing by 30,000 cases daily. This is a danger sign and if we don’t take it seriously, Maharashtra will have to pay a heavy price,” he said.
According to official figures, for the past few days, more than 400 new COVID-19 cases are being reported in Mumbai every day.
On Sunday, Maharashtra reported 4,057 coronavirus cases, taking the state’s infection tally to 64,86,174, while the death toll of 67 patients took the toll to 1,37,774, the health department said on Sunday.
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