Patna: The novel coronavirus pandemic has reached the doorsteps of Bihar administration after senior BJP leader Awadhesh Narain Singh, who is the acting Chairman of Bihar Vidhan Parishad tested positive for COVID-19.
On Saturday, the BJP leader along with his family members were taken to AIIMS Patna for treatment. A total of seven people including Awadhesh Singh have tested positive so far.
According to reports, Awadhesh Singh was in attendance along with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi during the oath-taking ceremony of newly elected council members.
Assembly Speaker Vijay Kumar Choudhary, parliamentary affairs minister Shravan Kumar, health minister Mangal Pandey, PHED minister Vinod Narayan Jha, the ruling party’s whip Reena Yadav, the RJD’s MLAs Abdul Bari Siddiqui and Bhola Yadav, Congress MLC Prem Chandra Mishra and many other former MLCs were present at the event.
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The newly-elected MLCs, Ghulam Ghaus, Kumud Verma and Bhishm Sahni JD(U), Mohd Farooq, Chandrabali Singh Chandravanshi and Sunil Kumar Singh (RJD), Sanjay Mayukh and Samrat Chaudhary (BJP) and Samir Kumar Singh (Congress), took oath on July 1.
The elections, which were necessitated upon expiry of terms of nine MLCs, now poses a higher risk of infection spread for the top leadership in coming days.
Earlier, Backward and Extremely Backward Classes Welfare Minister Vinod Kumar Singh and his wife had tested positive for COVID-19 in the state.
Senior RJD leader and former Union minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh too tested positive for the coronavirus and was admitted to AIIMS.
With six more fatalities, the COVID-19 death toll has climbed to 84 in Bihar, while 197 fresh cases have pushed the state's tally of coronavirus patients to 11,111, according to a health department bulletin.
The state has 2,816 active coronavirus cases, while 8,211 patients have recovered from the disease.
