CM says ‘no lockdown extension’, but duo ‘personally’ want 15-day city closure
BENGALURU:
Is it a cover-up for their failure as top BBMP functionaries to manage the Covid situation in the city in general, and in the containment zones in particular, that Mayor M Goutham Kumar and Commissioner BH Anil Kumar are now espousing an extension of the current lockdown in the city?
Ironically, their ‘personal opinion’ comes on the heels of the Karnataka High Court taking BBMP to task for failing to supply food kits to the needy in containment zones.
Neither have they conveyed their ‘personal opinion’ on a lockdown extension to Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa –who is also in-charge of Bengaluru’s development — but have chosen to air it in the media.
The duo were addressing reporters at BBMP’s head office on Friday while launching the rapid antigen testing programme in the BBMP limits. Their comments came even as the CM convened a meeting of the 8 zonal in-charge ministers for Bengaluru and clarified that there would be no extension of the current lockdown.
.@BBMPCOMM I am with your team proposing extension of lockdown JD you also pay salaries of those effected for this period! Please note your failure to get the health care system running shouldn’t deploy misery upon us! Your dashboard is still disfuctional look at fixing it first!
— Karthik (@ikarthikmb) July 17, 2020
In fact, it can be argued that the current CM-ordered lockdown was necessitated because BBMP had failed to stay on top of the Covid situation.
“There is already a one-week long lockdown. In my personal opinion, it will be good if the lockdown is for 15 days,” the Commissioner said.
“It may be recalled that during the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s lockdown, the same BBMP commissioner wanted to open up the green zone areas in Bengaluru, the areas which were not infected and not declared as containmnet zones. Further he (commissioner) wanted to continue strict seal down to be implement in the containment zones, then what is preventing them to do now,” a critic said.
The Mayor joined in, saying, “We are seeing that people are still coming out despite the lockdown. The awareness has not come about among people and even those who have an understanding about the virus are not maintaining social distancing.” He added, “If there is a serious lockdown for fourteen days, I feel the chain can be cut.”
