New Delhi: Facing unprecedented criticism and outrage for continuing to campaign in West Bengal and address rallies attended by thousands amid the Pandemic, Prime Minister Narendra Modi at last cancelled his rallies in the state scheduled for Friday.
Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was the first to cancel his rallies in West Bengal due to the alarming rise in cases and deaths related to Coronavirus.
Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee followed soon and said she will not address big rallies because of the Covid-19. CPI (M) too had announced its decision not to organise rallies because of the Pandemic.
As per the BJP, Modi was supposed to address four rallies in West Bengal on Friday. The party was reluctant to any changes in Modi’s scheduled rallies in the state. Two of these rallies were planned at Malda and Murshidabad on April 22 and the other two rallies scheduled in Bolpur and Kolkata on April 24.
On the other hand, Home Minister Amit Shah has even refused to link the huge crowd attending the poll rallies with the spread of Coronavirus.
However, pressure mounted on the BJP leadership after the BJP government in New Delhi and Prime Minister himself were slammed for poor handling of the rising Covid cases and piling deaths.
“When Pyres burned, Modi rallied”, The Telegraph, Kolkata based English daily screamed on Monday.
Senior Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi led the others who slammed Modi for sticking to his scheduled rallies in West Bengal. This finally forced Modi to cancel his rallies scheduled for Friday.
In a damage control exercise, Modi however said he is cancelling his rallies because he is “concerned with the prevailing Covid situation", and will be holding a review meeting.
"Tomorrow, I will be chairing high-level meetings to review the prevailing Covid-19 situation. Due to that, I would not be going to West Bengal," the Prime Minister said, in a tweet.
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