The Union government has called an all-party meeting to discuss the COVID-19 pandemic situation on December 4, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi expected to interact with floor leaders of various parties from both houses of parliament, official sources said on Monday.
The Parliamentary Affairs Ministry is coordinating the meeting and has extended invitation to all parties, they said.
Floor leaders of all parties from Lok Sabha as well as Rajya Sabha have been invited for the meeting, which will be held virtually on Friday from 10.30 am onwards, sources told PTI, adding that Modi will chair it.
This will be the second all-party meeting called by the government to discuss the COVID-19 situation since the outbreak of the pandemic. The first meeting was held on April 20 amid a nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of the virus.
The top brass of the government including Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Home Minister Amit Shah besides Health Minister Harsh Vardhan and Parliamentary affairs minister Pralhad Joshi will also attend the meeting, they said.
The government is likely to brief the parliamentarians about various steps it has taken to deal with the pandemic and may also touch upon the advances being made in vaccine development and distribution.
The floor leaders of different parties include Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and Ghulam Nabi Azad of the Congress, Sudip Bandyopadhyay and Derek O’ Brien of the Trinamool Congress, Midhun Reddy and Vijayasai Reddy of the YSR Congress among others.
Modi has held multiple meetings with chief ministers, laying special emphasis on states with high COVID-19 caseload, to review the situation there and offer suggestions.
The prime minister on Monday held a virtual meeting with three teams working on developing and manufacturing COVID-19 vaccine. He had also visited pharmaceutical companies in Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Pune on Saturday, to review coronavirus vaccine development work there.