Union minister G Kishan Reddy on Thursday said Congress leader Rahul Gandhi can continue his Bharat Jodo Yatra but only if ensures all Covid protocols – including the use of face masks – are followed. The tourism and culture minister pointed out that all Members of Parliament, including prime minister Narendra Modi wore masks during today’s Parliament session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There has been renewed focus on following Covid guidelines – relaxed by the government after infections in India slowed to a crawl – after a worrying surge of cases in China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today, all MPs wore face masks in Parliament. The government has issued advisories to all states\/union territories (UTs) regarding the Covid-19 situation. Rahul Gandhi can continue with his Bharat Jodo Yatra but following Covid-19 protocols,” Reddy said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The minister’s remarks come amid a squabble between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress after health minister Mansukh Mandaviya’s letter to Rahul Gandhi; Mandaviya asked the Kerala MP to pause the yatra if he cannot ensure Covid protocols are followed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his letter, the health minister stressed on the use of face masks and hand sanitisers, and urged the Congress to ensure that only vaccinated individuals participate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The letter triggered a backlash from the Congress; Rahul Gandhi today accused the BJP of ‘making excuses’ to stop his mass outreach campaign, which will reach Delhi this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said the BJP had become wary of the growing power of his pan-India foot march and of ‘India’s truth’, and that ‘excuses’ – like the Covid-19 warning – were being used to stop him. “\u2026 it is their (BJP) new idea\u2026 they wrote a letter to me saying Covid is coming and (to) stop the Yatra. All these are excuses to stop this yatra\u2026 they are scared of India’s truth,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another Congress MP – Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, the party’s leader in the Lok Sabha – pointed out that the government had failed to stop the prime minister from campaigning for the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh elections, which were held just days ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I want to ask BJP\u2026 did PM Modi follow Covid protocols during Gujarat polls?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Union minister G Kishan Reddy on Thursday said Congress leader Rahul Gandhi can continue his Bharat Jodo Yatra but only if ensures all Covid protocols – including the use of face masks – are followed. The tourism and culture minister pointed out that all Members of Parliament, including prime minister Narendra Modi wore masks during […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":89492,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dailypunjabtimes.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dailypunjabtimes.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dailypunjabtimes.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dailypunjabtimes.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dailypunjabtimes.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89491"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dailypunjabtimes.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89493,"href":"https:\/\/www.dailypunjabtimes.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89491\/revisions\/89493"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dailypunjabtimes.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dailypunjabtimes.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dailypunjabtimes.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dailypunjabtimes.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}