Telangana Rashtra Samithi president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s decision not to impose lockdown even partially in the state to check the spread of Coronavirus has drawn a lot of criticism from various quarters.
His argument that imposition of lockdown would result in collapse of economy and deprive livelihood to thousands of workers and employees has no takers. They wonder whether filling up revenue is more important than saving thousands of lives.
On Monday, actress-politician and former parliament member M Vijayashanti raised an interesting question to nail KCR’s argument.
She pointed out that the interest shown by the KCR government in running cinema halls, bars and pubs for the sake of money was not there in saving the lives of the people.
“He closed down schools and colleges stating that it would spread Coronavirus, but continues to run bars, pubs, hotels and restaurants. On Sunday, he announced financial assistance of Rs 2,000 per month and 25 kg of rice for private school teachers. If he extends same assistance to workers of bars and pubs and order their closure, there would not have been so many cases,” she said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party leader demanded that at least now, the government should take steps to close down places of public gathering, if not imposition of lockdown, so that the spread of virus can be contained at least to some extent.
Vijayashanti wondered why the chief minister hurriedly announced appointment of doctors and paramedical staff in the government hospitals on war footing now.
“Who stopped him from making these recruitments in the past? Why didn’t he fill up the posts all these days?” she asked.