Modi widens ambit of COVID-19 discussions; dials Sonia, Manmohan and others

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday widened the ambit of political discussions over COVID-19, three days before he is slated to interact with the floor leaders of political parties in Parliament.

Besides Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi, who had written to the prime minister on the virus challenge, Modi called two former presidents — Pranab Mukherjee and Pratibha Patil — and two former prime ministers — Manmohan Singh and H D Deve Gowda — to discuss the situation.

He also spoke to leaders of different political parties from states in the north and south, including at least three former chief ministers — Mulayam Singh Yadav and son Akhilesh Yadav (Uttar Pradesh) and Parkash Singh Badal (Punjab) — and three chief ministers — Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal) Naveen Patnaik (Odisha) and K Chandrasekhar Rao (Telangana) — and DMK leader M K Stalin.

There has been criticism that the government has not taken the Opposition into confidence on drafting the strategy to counter COVID-19.

On Saturday, when the government announced that the prime minister will interact with floor leaders of parties having at least five MPs in both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha combined, the Trinamool Congress had flagged the issue, saying its demands to discuss the issue in Parliament were not accepted and hence it would not participate in the interaction.

Modi's move to rope in senior leaders is expected to smoothen the rough edges and help evolve a political consensus on fighting the pandemic.

The Congress has in the last few weeks repeatedly trained its guns on the Modi dispensation over the spread COVID-19 and the government's strategy to counter it, particularly its handling of migrants on the move, after the announcement of the 21-day lockdown.