Gandhinagar: In a shocking development, a Congress MLA from Khadia-Jamalpur constituency of Wall City Ahmedabad, Imran Khedawala was declared COVID-19 positive patient within six hours after he met Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, Dy Chief Minister Nitin Patel who is also Health Minister, MoS Home Pradipsinh Jadeja among others.

Khedawala has been taken to Sola based Civil hospital in Ahmedabad for Covid19 treatment.

Khedawala had visited Gandhinagar to attend a meeting with Chief Minister along with other Wall city Ahmedabad area Congress MLAs Gyasuddin Sheikh and Shailesh Parmar in a same car. Constituency areas of these Wall City Ahmedabad MLAs are declared hotspot due to too high number of coronavirus cases. The State government has declared curfew in their constituency areas from tomorrow.

Khedawala has been an active on the ground MLA. He has been visiting the streets of his Jamalpur constituency with health and police teams to convince local Muslims that they should extend cooperation in screening and testing procedures.

During a meeting with Chief Minister, Khedawala was not wearing a mask covering his mouth and nose. Chief Minister, Deputy Chief Minister, MoS Home, MLA Shailesh Parmar were also not wearing face masks. Only MLA Gyasuddin Sheikh was seen wearing proper face mask continuously during the meeting.

Gujarat MLA detected Covid19 positive, hours after meeting the State Chief Minister, Dy CM and MoS Home https://t.co/DhGXdKHy7c pic.twitter.com/lIbNz2YTgn

— DeshGujarat (@DeshGujarat) April 14, 2020

It is understood that social distancing was maintained in this meeting.

Khedawala has met number of media persons, AMC officials and staffers in last few days in the course of lockdown.

The meeting chaired by CM was held at 1 pm in Gandhinagar, while at around 8 pm Khedawala was declared Covid19 positive.

It is also learnt that Khedawala already had temperature when he entered the meeting.

This evening development today has created shocker in Gandhinagar as Chief Minister, Dy CM and MoS Home are top three decision makers who take day-to-day decisions on Coronavirus situation. They also regularly meet entire row of top officers in the course of various meetings. If Corinavirus spread in this top row, it will have shocking effect.

The questions are also raised that why the MLAs active on the ground in worst affected hotspot areas of the State were not wearing masks? Why Chief Minister and others were also not wearing masks during the meeting ? Were they overconfident ? Was there a lethargy ? Was there a casual approach ? Is there any protocol in practice in State secretariat and Chief Minister’s bungalow, such as mandatory wearing of proper mask, hand gloves, use of sanitizer, thermal gun etc ?

Chief Minister’s Secretary says it was Imran’s mistake

Chief Minister’s Secretary Ashwani Kumar in a statement issued late in the evening said, Chief Minister Rupani had called Shailesh Parmar, Gyasuddin Sheikh and Imran Khedawala to Chief Minister’s residence for a meeting to discuss the decision to impose curfew in Ahmedabad’s wall city area which has been hit by spread of Coronavirus infection. Khedawala’s samples were taken for test around two days ago due to symptoms of cold and fever he had developed. Result of his test was pending. He could have avoided meeting others till his report was out. But he didn’t do that which was his mistake. Khedawala was sitting at 15 to 20 ft distance away from Chief Minister (during the meeting). However tomorrow morning, the Chief Minister will take the advice of medical experts and follow the advice.

DeshGujarat