Prime Minister Modi recently held a meeting with chief ministers of 10 states with the most number of COVID-19 cases. The meeting via video conferencing comes amid a huge surge in coronavirus cases in the country. Now, the central government sources on Friday said that Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal used his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the COVID-19 situation as a platform to ''play politics over a serious issue and evade responsibility.'' Govt sources said Delhi CM Kejriwal raised the point of airlifting oxygen but did not know that it is already being done. They added, "He spoke about Oxygen express by Railways but Railway sources say that he has not communicated anything about it to Railways."
"Kejriwal has descended to a new low. For the first time, private conversations of PM's meeting with the CMs were televised. His entire speech was not meant for any solution but for playing politics and evade responsibility" the govt sources said. During the meeting, the Delhi CM raised an alarm that a "big tragedy" may happen due to oxygen shortage in hospitals during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Chief Minister Kejriwal stressed that the Centre should take control of all oxygen plants through the Army. During the meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the COVID-19 situation, Kejriwal requested him to direct chief ministers of all states to ensure smooth movement of oxygen tankers coming to the national capital." People are in major pain due to oxygen shortage. We fear a big tragedy may happen due to oxygen shortage and we will never be able to forgive ourselves. I request you with folded hands to direct all CMs to ensure smooth movement of oxygen tankers coming to Delhi," he said during the meeting. We need a national plan to deal with the crisis. Centre government should take over all oxygen plants through the Army and every tanker coming out of the oxygen plant should be accompanied by an Army escort vehicle," he said. "The oxygen supply scheduled to come to Delhi from Odisha and West Bengal should either be airlifted or brought through the Oxygen express started by the Centre," he said.
However, the Delhi government clarified that there was no instruction on keeping the meeting private. “There have been multiple occasions of similar interactions where matters of public importance which had no confidential information were shared live. However, if any inconvenience was caused we highly regret that," it said in a statement.Now, a video of the meeting has surfaced where PM Modi without naming Kejriwal says that a practice of confidentiality is in practice. “There is a practice of confidentiality in place and it is in appropriate for a chief minister in our midst to do a live telecast," he says. To this, Kejriwal is seen repeatedly apologising. Besides the CM of Delhi, CMs of Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, and Madhya Pradesh too participated in the meeting via video conferencing.