Union minister Nitin Gadkari and former Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Wednesday said that they have tested positive for coronavirus and have mild symptoms.
“Following all the necessary protocols, I have isolated myself and I am under home quarantine,” Gadkari said in a tweet. “I request all those who have come in contact with me to isolate themselves and get tested.”
This is the second time Gadkari has tested positive for the disease. He was previously infected in September 2020.
Singh has tested positive just a month before Punjab Assembly elections. Singh’s Punjab Lok Congress has tied up with the the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa-led Shiromani Akali Dal (Sanyukta) to contest the polls together.
Several ministers and leaders across India have tested positive for Covid-19 in the run-up to the Assembly polls in Goa, Punjab, Manipur, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. The elections will take place in seven phases from February 10 to March 7.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his Karnataka counterpart Basavaraj Bommai too had tested positive for the virus on Monday.
On January 4, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had said that he had tested positive for the coronavirus and had isolated himself at home. In the week before that, he had taken part in at least four rallies in the poll-bound states of Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
The Omicron variant of the virus has led to an almost eight-fold jump in daily infections over the last 10 days. India recorded 1,94,720 new Covid-19 cases on Wednesday morning, taking the overall tally to 3,60,70,510 since the pandemic began in the country in January 2020. The number of new cases was 15.86% more than Tuesday’s count of 1,68,063 cases.
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