As the coronavirus crisis in Maharashtra deteriorates, exposing the Maha Vikas Aghadi government’s inherent failure in curbing the spread of the contagion, the principal opposition party BJP had demanded that the President rule be imposed in the state citing the state machinery’s utter failure in handling the outbreak.
Concerning this demand, Loksatta, a Marathi news outlet, ran a Twitter poll on its official Twitter page, to gauge the pulse of the state in determining if the BJP’s demand to impose President’s rule in the state of Maharashtra was justified. “Does BJP’s demand for imposition of President’s rule in Maharashtra seem justified?” the poll was floated by Loksatta with the options “Yes” and “No”.
However, soon after the poll titled in the favour of those agreeing with the BJP’s demand of having President rule in the state, the tweet was deleted by Loksatta. The poll, whose lifespan was 24 hours, was pulled down merely within 5 hours after it was posted as 51 per cent of the respondents concurred with the BJP’s demand to dismiss the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra and instead impose the President rule. Over 8000 votes had been cast within 5 hours.
Author starts her own poll on Twitter
Loksatta’s deleted poll was noticed by popular author Shefali Vaidya, who ran the same poll on her Twitter page to determine the current mood of people in the country with regards to the President rule in Maharashtra. As of now, a total of 8,373 had already responded to her poll and a staggering 85 per cent of them have voted in favour of the BJP’s demand of imposing President’s rule in the state.
BJP demands President rule in Maharashtra
With the coronavirus crisis in Maharashtra slipping out of hand, BJP leader Narayan Rane yesterday asked the State Governor- Bhagat Singh Koshyari, to consider recommending President’s rule in the state. Rane called on Koshyari on Monday to raise his concerns over the rising number of COVID-19 cases in Maharashtra.
“The state government has completely failed in handling the crisis, be it testing, hospital management, food grain distribution…the bureaucracy has failed in following the orders of the government. The situation is out of control and is only worsening,” Rane said.
The BJP leader said that if the Governor cannot recommend President’s rule, then the Army should be handed over the entire control of the civic hospitals in the city so that there is better coordination and management.
Maharashtra has emerged as the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak in India, with state capital Mumbai becoming the worst affected coronavirus hotspot in the country. The total number of COVID-19 cases in Maharashtra has crossed the 50,000-mark with more than 1600 fatalities. Mumbai and its suburbs have reported approximately 40,000 of the total cases in Maharashtra.
