DMK slams TN CM Palaniswami over COVID-19, demands rapid testing
The Dravidian party chief called Palaniswami's remarkrelated to the manner in which coronavirus spread in TamilNadu a "joke," and wanted the Chief Minister to stop utteringsuch things and instead sought measures to end the spread ofthe contagion.
Stalin said, "...it is a rare discovery on classdiscrimination, he should stop uttering such jokes and insteadtake steps to stop spread of coronavirus."
The Chief Minister had said on Thursday: "It is adisease of the rich. People who had travelled abroad or toother states have imported it (to Tamil Nadu). It did notoriginate here."
Stalin, who is Leader of the Opposition in theAssembly, referring to Palaniswami's remark on Thursday thatthe government hoped that new cases will soon be zero in TamilNadu, said one does not know whether to "laugh or cry."
Palaniswami had said that the state was in the secondstage of the spread and Thursday's new number of cases of 25as against higher numbers in preceding days showed that thestate has managed to contain it.
The Chief Minister had hoped the number of fresh caseswill soon touch zero as the rate of people getting cured wasalso increasing.
Citing statistics related to samples tested andresults awaited, Stalin in a statement wanted to know from thegovernment what percentage the tested people constituted whenthe population of Tamil Nadu was taken into account.
Apparently, he wanted more people tested as part ofefforts to curb the spread of contagion.
According to a bulletin on Thursday, as many as 26,005samples have been tested and 1,267 people have so far turnedpositive and as per census data of 2011 the State has apopulation of 7.21 crore.
The DMK chief alleged that despite his party andothers telling the government to buy testing kits and speed uptesting at a massive pace it was not heeded.