Kolkata: The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) has filed a petition before the Calcutta High Court asking for the deployment of paramilitary forces in the state after reports of lockdown violations imposed to curb the spread of coronavirus.
The petition was filed on Thursday by the West Bengal BJP legal cell convenor and senior Advocate, Partha Ghosh. The hearing date is yet to be announced by the court.
Speaking to the News18, Ghosh said, “It is unfortunate that the West Bengal not following the guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO) in ensuring all necessary steps which are required to contain Covid-19.”
He said it is worrisome that large numbers of people come out daily at public markets amid the crisis. Other incidents of clashes reported from across the state are not a good sign said the advocate.
Calling the Bengal government to have “completely failed to tackle the situation” he said it was necessary to file the petition asking for assistance from the armed forces under Section 35 of the Disaster Management Act, 2005.
Apart from the deployment of the paramilitary forces, BJP’s legal cell also requested the court to interfere and ask the state government to ensure death certificates with accurate information regarding the cause of death of the patients. Reports have suggested that healthcare officials are trying to suppress information relating to the deaths, amid the coronavirus outbreak in the state.
“We have requested the court to ban the audit committee formed by the state government to ascertain the exact cause of patient’s death. Other provisions, such as allowing mobile phones in the quarantine facilities, which was ban by the state government, have also been appealed,” Ghosh added.
BJP leaders including Amit Malviya, Kailash Vijayvargiya, Dilip Ghosh, Rahul Sinha, Babul Supriyo have criticized Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s leadership amid the health crisis in Bengal.
However, Mamata has maintained that her state has performed well ahead of all the metros in containing the virus. She has also requested the BJP leaders not to indulge in politics and asked to fight a united battle against the crisis.
“This is not election time. Please don’t do dirty politics and come forward to work with us in containing the Covid19,” the chief minister said.
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