AAP MP Raghav Chadha demands ban on flights from China, seeks discussion in Parliament on Covid-19

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) senior leader and Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha on Thursday gave a Suspension of Notice under Rule 267 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business seeking a discussion on incessantly rising coronavirus cases in China and its impact on India. In his written notice, Raghav Chadha said, "I hereby give notice under Rule 267 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Rajya Sabha, this House do suspend Rule 38 of the said Rule in its application to the discussion on rising corona cases in China and impact on India. China is witnessing an alarming surge in fatal COVID infections from a sub-variant of Omicron.

Epidemiologists predict at least three waves of the virus to hit the country during the following months and cause over a million fatalities." Raghav Chadha said that the virus has already wreaked havoc in China, pushing its healthcare system into chaos reports suggest that there are no beds in hospitals, medicines are running out of stock, and mortuaries have run out of space. Videos of the devastation caused by the pandemic are flooding social media and alarming people. Cornering the BJP-led Centre government over mismanagement in handling the Covid-19 situation during the devastating second wave, he said that the government had ignored and downplayed the early signs of the pandemic in early and late 2020. The delay in managing international air connectivity and taking effective early measures allowed the virus to spread unchecked across the country.

He further added that complacency in tracking new mutants and ignorance of warning signs plunged our country into a second wave, pushing our healthcare system to the brink of total collapse and leaving lakhs of Indians dead. Expressing concern over detection of four cases of this new variant in India, Chadha said that the world is on high alert. "As a nation, we can neither afford complacency nor manage a lethal pathogen with just reassuring headlines." Seeking a ban on flights from China, he said that given the seriousness of the situation, the Ministry of Health, Government of India has issued an advisory to the States, but stronger measures were needed. The need of the hour is to immediately ban any connecting flights from China to India via Asian countries and consider a mandatory institutional quarantine for international passengers from affected countries, he said. He stressed that managing a pandemic is the collective responsibility of the union and all state governments. Therefore, a discussion in the Parliament on the impending threat from the new variant and the Government's preparedness to tackle the same is highly needed.