On the 14th of September, as many as 24 Members of Parliament (MPs) tested positive for the Novel Coronavirus or COVID-19.
According to sources, on Monday, the first day of the 2020 Monsoon Parliament session, 17 Lok Sabha MPs and 9 Rajya Sabha MPs are COVID-19 positive.
Of the total 17 Lok Sabha MPs, 12 are from BJP and the remaining from other parties
Some of the MPs who were tested positive include Junior Railways Minister Suresh Angadi, Meenakshi Lekhi, a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP,) Anant Kumar Hegde, a BJP member, Parvesh Sahib Singh, a BJP MP, Rita Bahuguna Joshi (BJP) and Kaushal Kishore (BJP.)
Other MPs who tested positive are Jamyang Tsering Namagyal (BJP,) Samir Mohanty (BJP) Hanuman Beniwal (BJP) and Sukanta Majumdaar.
The Parliamentary authorities were conducting COVID-19 tests for all the MPs, scheduled to participate in the Monsoon session.
The RT-PCR tests were conducted on the 12 and 13th of September. The test would continue till the next week for the members of Parliament.
As the viral disease continues to pose a threat to the session, many senior MPs, cutting across political lines, decided against attending the proceedings. Manish Sisodia, the Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi also took to Twitter and decided not to attend the session.
Ram Niwas Goel, the Delhi Assembly Speaker who attended the Monsoon session on behalf of Mr. Sisodia said since he is suffering from fever since last night, he would not attend the session.
The first day of the delayed session that was attended by 359 members, nearly 200 were present in the Lok Sabha chamber and a little over 30 were seated in the visitors’ gallery located above the main chamber.
The Parliament session is being held in two shifts, one is Rajya Sabha in the morning and the Lok Sabha in the afternoon.
Stay tuned for further updates.
