West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday said that her party, Trinamool Congress would only organise small meetings in Kolkata in the wake of rising COVID-19 cases in the state. The TMC supremo said that she would give short speeches in rallies in the districts, where polling is scheduled to be held in the remaining three phases.
Mamata Banerjee will cut short her speech to 20 minutes or so from the usual time of 50 minutes to one hour, the West Bengal CM said, speaking to a TV news channel. The TMC leader said she is reducing the timings of her speech so that people don’t have stay long at the public meetings.
“Yes, we have decided to hold small meetings, street corner-type ones, in the city in the campaigning for the next three phases. We will not hold any big gatherings any more. Also my speeches in the meetings addressed by me will be much shorter,” she said.
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“Mamata Banerjee will NOT campaign in Kolkata anymore. Only one ‘symbolic’ meeting on the last day of campaigning in the city on April 26. Slashes time for all her election rallies in all districts. Restricted to just 30 minutes,” Trinamool Rajya Sabha member Derek O’Brien tweeted on Sunday.
The decision by the TMC comes after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi earlier on Sunday announced that he is suspending all his public meetings in West Bengal amid a rise in coronavirus cases in the state. He urged other leaders to think about the consequences of holding public meetings at this stage.
The COVID-19 tally of West Bengal, where an eight-phase assembly election is underway, went up to 659,927 after it recorded its highest single-day spike of 8,419 infections on Sunday.
Twenty-eight fresh fatalities pushed the state’s coronavirus death toll to 10,568, it said.
Kolkata reported the highest number of new cases at 2,197, followed by 1,860 in neighbouring North 24 Parganas district.
North 24 Parganas registered six fresh fatalities, followed by five in Kolkata.
