While the Central government is shooting advisories to state governments amid growing Covid concerns, a BJP MLA in Gujarat threw all Covid precautions out of the window to organise a cricket tournament in his constituency.
Botad BJP MLA Saurabh Patel on Sunday shared videos of a night cricket tournament organised by his party and attended by hundreds - most without masks and no adherence to social distancing rules.
This as the country is reporting a rise in daily cases of coronavirus fuelled by the highly transmissible Omicron variant.
The MLA, however, defended the tournament saying there are no Covid cases in Botad currently, where the tournament was held. He also said the tournament was launched nearly a month ago when the number of cases was negligible.
Videos of the tournament final, played on Christmas, showed spectators, many without masks, running to the pitch as part of victory celebrations.
The MLA, however, said that except for the final, very few people had turned up in the other matches and all Covid rules were followed during them, the MLA said.
Gujarat has seen a steady rise in cases in the past few days, with the active tally now standing close to a 1,000 cases.
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