Prime Minister Narendra Modi today announced on Twitter that he would be “chairing high-level meetings to review the prevailing #COVID19 situation…” and as a result, he will not be visiting West Bengal tomorrow.
This statement means an effective end to his election campaign in Bengal, which is to vote in three more rounds before the election result on 2nd May.
Home Minister Amit Shah has also cut short his campaign today, cancelling two out of three of his Bengal meetings to return to Delhi for the COVID meeting.
PM Modi was scheduled to address four election meetings in Bengal tomorrow but this is the first time he has cancelled a campaign in Bengal. The optics of these meetings have been particularly bad for the ruling BJP at a time when the COVID cases are skyrocketing.
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Criticised for keeping up its outsized rallies despite the raging infections, the BJP said it would limit the number of people to 500 and the PM's meetings for Saturday were clubbed with his Friday campaign.