HP CM Jai Ram Thakur, 40 staff members home quarantined after officer, visitors test positive for COVID-19

Not only the general public but even lawmakers including the Chief Minister and other bureaucrats of Himachal Pradesh are not immune to the deadly coronavirus with the number of cases increasing manifold in the past one month.

Nearly one-and-a-half month after the state Police Headquarter was sealed for two days and the DGP along with over 30 police personnel were placed under home quarantine, Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur along with wife Dr. Sadhna Thakur and other family members were advised home quarantine on Wednesday. The CM and his family were placed under home quarantine after a Deputy Secretary in the CMO and two persons in Seraj, CM's assembly constituency in Mandi district, tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday.

According to reports, panic gripped the HP Secretariat after two people hailing from Janjheli in Seraj who met Jai Ram Thakur at his official residence ‘Oak Over’ and also the Secretariat, tested positive for COVID-19. An Additional Advocate General in the Himachal Pradesh High Court, who also belonged to Mandi, who also met these persons, has also tested positive for the virus.

The CM’s residence and office complex have been sanitised and samples of the CM, his wife, over 40 staff members and security personnel have been taken for running COVID-19 tests.

On June 9, state police chief Kundu along with over 30 subordinates were home quarantined soon after the news relating to the death of a visitor hailing from Delhi due to COVID-19 spread in Shimla. The state Police Headquarters was sealed and the building was sanitised completely. This ‘influential person’from Delhi visited the office of the DGP to greet Sanjay Kundu, who had taken over as the Director General of Police (DGP), Himachal Pradesh police on June 1. Earlier, Kundu was holding the charge of Principal Secretary (excise, taxation and vigilance) and principal resident commissioner of Himachal at New Delhi till May 31.

Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur has also courted controversy for violating COVID-19 guidelines by participating in a ‘Yagna’ organised by the BJP's women's wing. The Yagna (vedic ritualised prayers) was organised by the Mahila Morcha on July 16 in a parking lot on main Ring Road for World peace for ‘warding off Coronavirus’. The CM and his associates were seen without masks and throwing the norms of social distancing to the wind.