THE elections are done and dusted in West Bengal. Trinamool Congress (TMC) has earned a thumping victory, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been completely swept away, despite a boost of 74 seats, and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will now settle down to survey the level of destruction these polls have caused to the state.
As the first order of work, she has issued several instructions regarding Covid SOPs in the state. They are:
All local trains be shut down.
RT-PCR test a must for all those coming by flights to Bengal.
Markets to remain open from 7 am to 10 am and from 5 pm to 7 pm.
Banks will remain open from 10 am to 2 pm
Private and government offices will operate at 50 percent their strength.
Jewellery shops to open from 12 pm to 3 pm.
Metro rail and government buses to operate at 50 percent of their strength
All long distance and inter-state trains and bus passengers will require a negative RT-PCR report. Random checking will be done.
Tea gardens to operate at 50 percent of their strength.
When this correspondent had visited the city of Kolkata during the first phase of the pandemic, in the second half of March, the impending doom was palpable. Masks were hard to come by, the markets were slowly reopening and election road shows and rallies were growing. The infections were growing too. Now that the data will be reorganised, re-sorted, Bengal could shoot up among the top two-three states in infections. The latent fear is unbelievable. Death is no more something that a friend calls to tell about his/her relative. It is next door, it is in the house.
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