Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot cancels scheduled meetings as 10 staff at CMO, residence test COVID positive

As 10 staff members of Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's Office and residence tested positive, he has cancelled all his scheduled meetings.

"As a precautionary measure, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has cancelled all pre-scheduled meetings after 10 staff of Chief Minister`s Office and residence tested positive for COVID-19." statement released by the state government stated.

Moreover, as many as 29 MLAs and ministers have tested positive for COVID-19. Seven among them have recovered.

State Rural development Minister Tript Rajinder Bajwa was the first Minister to test positive for coronavirus but he has recovered and rejoined office. After him, Jails Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa,  Revenue Minister Gurpreet Kangar, and Industries Minister Sham Sunder Arora tested positive for COVID-19. 

Uttar Pradesh Cabinet Minister Sidharth Nath Singh has home-isolated himself after testing positive for Covid-19 on Thursday. On the same day, Union Minister of State (MoS) for Social Justice and Empowerment, Krishan Pal Gurjar, and BJP MP from Jammu-Poonch, Jugal Kishore Sharma have also tested positive for the coronavirus infection. 

On Thursday, India reported 75,760 new cases of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) and 1,023 deaths in the last 24 hours, pushing the tally to 3,310,234, according to the Union health ministry's dashboard. Globally, India is the third worst-hit nation from the pandemic. India may overtake Brazil sometime in the next two weeks if the cases continue to grow at the same pace.   

Meanwhile, the global coronavirus tally has gone up to 24,335,741 cases and 829,676 deaths, according to the world meter.