A security official tests Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu with a thermal screening device as he arrives at Parliament House on March 18, 2020. | Photo Credit:
Shiv Kumar Pushpakar
The comparison between parliament being in session and doctors, security personnel and others being at work a rather silly, frivolous equivalence.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi told the BJP parliamentary party on March 17 that the ongoing session of parliament will continue until April 3 as scheduled. According to Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi, the PM told MPs, “If media, doctors, pilots, state-owned transportation, airport, policemen, railway stations can work in this (the fight against coronavirus) direction, MPs have to do their job too. They have to keep the House running and simultaneously take care of their people.”
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This is grandstanding, but does not help the fight against the coronavirus. In fact, this attitude could damage the wide-spectrum earnest efforts of his own government in containing the risk of a nationwide outbreak. The comparison between parliament being in session and doctors, security personnel and others being at work a rather silly, frivolous equivalence. The spread of the virus at the moment is uneven acr