The Evening Wrap: Himanta Biswa Sarma to be Assam’s new CM
| | The Evening WrapSunday | 09 May, 2021 |  |
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Himanta Biswa Sarma to be Assam's new Chief Minister |
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Himanta Biswa Sarma will succeed Sarbananda Sonowal as the 15th Chief Minister of Assam, his election at the Legislature Party meeting today ending weeks of speculation. Outgoing Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal proposed his name as the BJP Legislature Party leader soon after tendering his resignation to Governor Jagdish Mukhi on Sunday. Mr. Sarma, who became the BJP's chief poll strategist after switching over from the Congress in 2015, was later named as Mr. Sonowal's successor. The replacement of Mr. Sonowal with Mr. Sarma is the recognition of the fact that the latter has not only put out many fires for the BJP in Assam — like the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) — but also his role as Health and Finance Minister in Assam, in managing the COVID-19 pandemic, The Hindu's political editor Nistula Hebbar writes in a profile of Mr. Sarma. A Ph.D from Gauhati University, Mr. Sarma is a lawyer by training and was active in student politics as general secretary (for three terms) at Cotton College and with the All Assam Student's Union. He joined the Congress in the 1990s and became an MLA from Jalukbari constituency defeating Asom Gana Parishad's Bhrigu Phukan in 2001. Since then he has represented Jalukbari on behalf of the Congress till 2016 and from 2016 to the present on a BJP ticket. He became Minister in the Congress-led State governments and also rose to the position of the action man of the Tarun Gogoi government, and much of the credit for the 2011 Congress victory in the State is laid at his door. Mr. Gogoi and Mr. Sarma became at odds with each other over the former's plans to promote his son, Lok Sabha MP Gaurav Gogoi in politics, while Mr. Sarma had earmarked the position of successor for himself. The differences became too big and the Congress' high command was either unwilling or unable to sort it out. In either case, Mr. Sarma jumped ship and joined the BJP – despite the party's own attack on Mr. Sarma a few months before this on the issue of a CBI inquiry against him in the Louis Berger case. Mallikarjun Kharge writes to Naidu, Modi, offers 6 suggestionsSenior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge on Sunday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to immediately convene an all-party meeting to collectively forge a holistic blueprint to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic. In a letter to the Prime Minister, he alleged that the Union government seems to have abdicated its duties towards the people and the situation requires a collective and consensual effort. He also sent his set of six suggestions to tackle the crisis due to the pandemic and said the Prime Minister's Office alone cannot handle it. "I request you to convene an all party meeting to collectively forge a holistic blueprint to tackle the pandemic. This would be a good opportunity for us to meaningfully reflect on, and implement the recommendations of experts and activists, whose advice has unfortunately been ignored so far," he told the Prime Minister. Mr. Kharge said he is writing to convey his deep concern and a sense of anguish regarding the unprecedented crisis the nation faces. Calling for free inoculation, he said, Parliament had allocated ₹35,000 crores in the union budget to ensure free vaccines for all. Despite this, the Union government allowed private companies to set exorbitant and differential prices for vaccines and outsourced the procurement of vaccines to already stretched state governments. "This will adversely impact millions of Indians. Sir, corporate profit cannot triumph saving lives. I, therefore, urge you to not relinquish the State's moral duty in immunising citizens. This is completely doable because India has a history of successful, large-scale immunisation programmes," he said. "It is heartbreaking to witness millions of ordinary Indians scrambling to access basic healthcare, oxygen, medicines, ventilators, hospital beds and even crematoriums and cemeteries, he said, adding that ordinary Indians are selling their land, jewellery and expending their savings to ensure treatment for their loved ones. The leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha also called for free immunisation drive for all citizens and urged him to utilise the ₹35,000 crore earmarked by Parliament for this purpose. Union Minister complains to U.P. CM on Covid responseMinister of State with independent charge in the Ministry of Labour and Employment Santosh Kumar Gangwar flagged concerns over the COVID-19 response in Uttar Pradesh in a letter to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on May 8. Mr. Gangwar complained about officers not answering phone calls and patients being forced to visit multiple facilities before being admitted to a hospital. Mr. Gangwar, who is the Lok Sabha MP from Bareilly in U.P., participated in a review meeting called by the Chief Minister in Bareilly on May 8, where, sources said, the letter with suggestions and complaints was handed over. In a tweet on Sunday, Mr. Gangwar said the Chief Minister met the elected representatives and officials of Bareilly to review the ongoing second wave of COVID-19 and made suggestions to improve the healthcare provided to residents. In the letter, Mr. Gangwar said vendors were selling essential equipment needed by hospitals like ventilators for higher prices than before. He said the government should fix the prices of these machines. Mr. Gangwar wrote that it was important for COVID-19 patients to receive medical care as soon as possible, but he had come to know that when patients went to any government hospital, they were asked to first go to a district hospital and get a referral. The patients' oxygen levels keep dropping while they had to visit multiple places before being admitted, he wrote. Terming it a cause of concern, he asked the Chief Minister to address the issue. He said those who had stored oxygen cylinders at home without needing them, and those who were selling them, should be identified. Mr. Gangwar complained that "important" officers involved with the COVID-19 response in Bareilly did not answer phone calls, which was leading to "inconvenience" to patients. The Minister suggested that all private hospitals in Bareilly should cater to COVID-19 patients. Exemption from customs duties for Covid relief materialFinance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on May 9 said GST exemption to domestic supplies and commercial import of COVID-19 drugs, vaccines and oxygen concentrators would make these items costlier for consumers as manufacturers would not be able to offset the taxes paid on inputs. Earlier in the day Ms. Banerjee wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to consider exempting organisations, agencies and individuals supplying equipment and drugs related to the management of the COVID-19 pandemic from customs duty and other Central taxes. The Finance Minister tweeted her response to Ms. Banerjee's letter: "A list of items for COVID relief granted exemption from IGST for imports was issued on May 3, 2021. These were given exemption from Customs Duty/health cess even earlier. Hon. CM @MamataOfficial, may notice that items in your list are covered," she said, adding "Full exemption from Customs duties, including IGST, is already available to ALL COVID relief material [not confined to a list] imported by @IndianRedCross for free distribution in the country." Ms. Sitharaman said: "With effect from 3 May, 2021, full exemption from all duties has been provided to Remdesivir injections, Remdesivir API, and for a chemical for the manufacture of this drug. 16 AMU staff, ex-teachers die of Covid-19After 16 of its faculty members, other employees and retired teachers living in the vicinity of the campus died of COVID-19, Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) has written to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) asking for an analysis of the samples to find out what was behind the surge. In a statement on Sunday, AMU public relations officer Omar Peerzada said: "In order to analyse the severity of Covid-19 and its suspected new variant that wreaked havoc in Aligarh as many faculty members, retired teachers and other employees of the university succumbed to it, the samples collected at the ICMR approved COVID-19 testing laboratory of the Department of Microbiology, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, AMU have been sent for viral genome sequencing to the CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, New Delhi after suspicions of a new COVID variant fuelling the surge of Coronavirus cases in Aligarh." The statement said that the samples had been sent along with a letter by AMU vice-chancellor Prof. Tariq Mansoor to ICMR director general Prof. Balram Bhargava requesting him to order the concerned department to perform the analysis. The V-C's letter said: "This is to bring into your notice that 16 AMU faculty members, a number of retired teachers and employees in other categories, who were living in the university campus and adjoining localities have succumbed to COVID-19. This is giving rise to a suspicion that a particular viral variant may be circulating in the Civil Lines area of Aligarh in which AMU and many adjoining localities are situated." Trinamool requests virtual parliamentary committee hearingsThe Trinamool Congress has written to Rajya Sabha Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, urging them to let parliamentary committee meetings be held virtually to enable them to address issues of public interest amidst the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. This is the TMC's third letter on the issue, the party said, adding that the first letter was written in July 2020 and the second letter in August 2020. "India has reported more than 3 lakh new COVID-19 cases per day for the past two weeks. In light of the prevailing circumstances, I urge your good offices to reconsider our request for conducting virtual meetings of parliamentary committees, including departmentally related standing committees, consultative committees and select committees," the letter from RS MP and the party's national spokesperson Derek O'Brien said. He also said that the party had received a letter from the chairman's office dated August 27, which stated that it was "decided in a meeting that the matter regarding holding of virtual meetings of the Parliamentary Committees vis-à-vis existing provisions on confidentiality of the proceedings of the Committees, may be referred to the Committees on Rules in both the Houses". "I further request you to share any findings/decisions that the Committees on Rules of both the Houses may have reached. I urge you again to allow the Parliamentary Committees to function virtually so that issues of public importance can be taken up timely and discussed, especially in light of the serious circumstances in the country," Mr. O'Brien said. Covid watch: Numbers and DevelopmentsThe number of reported coronavirus cases from India stands at 2,26,20,994 at the time of publishing this newsletter with the death toll at 2,45,386. In BriefAmerican space agency NASA on Sunday slammed China for failing to meet "responsible standards" regarding its space debris, hours after remnants of the country's largest and an out of control rocket disintegrated over the Indian Ocean near the Maldives. The debris from China's Long March 5B rocket re-entered the Earth's atmosphere at 10.24 a.m. Beijing time and fell into an open sea area at 72.47 degrees east longitude and 2.65 degrees north latitude, China's Manned Space Engineering Office said. Reacting to China's space programme, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said: "It is clear that China is failing to meet responsible standards regarding their space debris." "Spacefaring nations must minimize the risks to people and property on Earth of re-entries of space objects and maximize transparency regarding those operations," he said in a statement. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. |
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