What Manish Sisodia Said After Amit Shah Said His Comment "Created Fear"

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal believes that the capital's battle against coronavirus is very big and that no one person or agency can deal with it alone, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said on Sunday after Union Home Minister Amit Shah hit out at Mr Sisodia over the estimation that there will be 5.5 lakh COVID-19 cases in Delhi by July 31.

Amit Shah, in an interview to news agency ANI, had said Mr Sisodia's comment had "created fear among the public" and said Delhi would not face such a situation.

"Around the second week of June, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said that by July 31 there will be 5.50 lakh persons infected with the virus. He said that there will be no place left, no beds left and the situation will be difficult. This created a lot of fear in the minds of people in Delhi. His estimate was based on figures. I do not want to go into whether estimate was right or wrong. But a situation of fear arose and some people started mulling an exodus (from Delhi)," Amit Shah told ANI.

Delhi has the second-highest number of coronavirus cases in India after Maharashtra, with over 80,000 cases.

"The Chief Minister believes that the battle against coronavirus is very big and that no one person or agency can deal with it alone. The Chief Minister has brought everyone together and today, we are seeing its results," Manish Sisodia said in a statement on Sunday. 

He also said that Arvind Kejriwal sought help and support of every agency to battle  coronavirus in Delhi.

In the first week of June, there was a sudden spike in corona cases, Mr Sisodia said, adding that there was a shortage of beds and testing. 

The Delhi Deputy Chief Minister said that last week saw things stabilising as recovery rate has increased to 62 per cent, adding, "Today more patients are recovering in Delhi than those who are falling ill, number of deaths are coming down, positivity rate is decreasing rapidly."

"We are hopeful that situation will improve in the coming weeks and will certainly not be as bleak as it looked in first week of June when domain experts predicted 5.5 lakh cases in Delhi by July 31," Mr Sisodia said.

Responding to questions about possible community-level spread of the virus in the national capital, Amit Shah - who has held several meetings with the Delhi government over the worrying number of COVID-19 cases in the city - told ANI "there is no need to fear" and said he had consulted three senior doctors on this subject.