Terming the deaths owing to COVID-19 “murders due to political irresponsibility” by the ruling BJP, the former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday urged Congress legislators to be with the people in this time of crisis to ensure hospital beds, ambulance services, medicines, and availability of oxygen for the common man in their constituencies.
In a letter to the legislators, he appealed to them to ensure supply of food to the needy, on the lines of the efforts made during the lockdown last year.
He alleged that both the Centre and State, ruled by the BJP, had ignored the warnings of experts who predicted a second wave of COVID-19 in the months of February and March. “BJP leaders thrashed these suggestions and by November they started claiming that the battle against COVID -19 was over. Testing was reduced and test results delayed,” he said.
He said the situation has become so distressing now that even the last rites of victims cannot be done honourably and livelihoods of small businessmen were being snatched away without warning because of the imposition of curfew. Despite the crisis, Mr. Siddaramaiah said the government has reduced PDS rice distribution to BPL families by 2 kg and increased the cost of fertilisers.
Meanwhile, criticising the government for imposing a lockdown-like curfew with the closure of non-essential businesses, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president D.K. Shivakumar on Friday told presspersons that the curfew was condemnable. “The government has failed, but we are cooperating with it by being humane. Despite our promise to cooperate, forcible closure is not acceptable. The government has to work. We will fight the government politically,” he said.
He added that the supply of oxygen had not stabilised and medicines were still be sold in the black market.
