Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray will on Sunday hold back-to-back meetings to ‘build consensus for more restrictions. The CM will meet film and serial producers and directors around noon, while the second meeting will take place with industrialists and business around 1 pm. Several top names have been infected recently, including Akshay Kumar, Sachin Tendulkar, Bappi Lahiri and Robert Vadra.
While Thackeray has been mulling a lockdown for some time now and has issued several warnings of a ‘shutdown-like‘ situation, both his allies — the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) — have objected to locking the state. Billionaire businessman Anand Mahindra, chairman of Mumbai-based conglomerate Mahindra Group, had also said that a lockdown would hurt “the poor, migrant workers and small businesses”. Instead, he urged the chief minister to focus on building up hospitals and health-care infrastructure and to avoid Covid-related deaths.
Sources told News18 that the Maharashtra government is mulling a lockdown. They have indicated that stricter rules may be enforced after cabinet meeting at 3pm. Thackeray had in the last televised address said, “Consider this a warning that I could impose a complete lockdown in the next couple of days if things remain the same.”
What Can Be Expected Out of Thackeray’s Meeting Today:
• Multiplexes, gyms, health clubs and cinema halls may either close or there may be further cap on visitors as Thackeray had told the owners of these facilities that he may have to take certain stringent steps as the situation in Maharashtra is grim.
• Option of lockdown still cannot be ruled as the chief minister says he is aware their businesses had just started to come back on track, but at the moment the state has to prioritise lives. Thackeray said his current priority is in the following order: “Zindagi, jaan, uske baad kaam (life and then livelihood)”.
• A Times of India report senior officials as saying that the state was considering shutting malls, cinema halls, gyms and religious places, and orders will be issued in the next two days. It is also likely that specific restrictions will be announced for the top eight districts that have the highest caseload in the state and are driving the Covid-19 numbers nationally as well.
• Limiting number of guests during weddings and public events may also been an option. A sense of complacency seems to have set in among people after being cooped up in their homes for nearly a year, many are attending big weddings and family functions and started visiting crowded marketplaces.
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