As the country enters the fourth phase of the lockdown, NCP and Shiv Sena seem to be at loggerheads with each other on how to go about it.
It is expected that lockdown will continue till the end of May. This has worried many politicians who have come out and spoken of the impact that it is creating on the economy. Sharad Pawar of the NCP has come out and stated that the party must ensure a balance between ‘the lockdown and the economy’ at a meeting was held between CM Uddhav Thackeray and other party members on Friday, May 15, 2020.
This meeting was attended by Jayant Patil, Anil Deshmukh and Rajesh Tope from the NCP along with Aaditya Thackeray, and bureaucrats Ajoy Mehta, Sanjay Kumar and Bhushan Gagrani. While Pawar was of the opinion that Mumbai should resume economic activities the soonest, Thackeray refuting the opinions reportedly stated that Mumbai has the highest number of COVID-19 cases. These cases have so far been in control as a consequence of the lockdown. If Mumbai was to resume all its activities at this point, it would see a spike in the number of cases which the infrastructure of the city is not equipped to handle.
CM Thackeray had earlier addressed the citizens of Maharashtra stating that the state government will partially resume economic activities from April 20 in Green and Orange zones. However, the government had to pause the partial relaxation in Pune and Mumbai as COVID-19 cases soared. With the railways shutting down its services on March 22 marking 'Janta Curfew', the Maharashtra government extended a state-wide curfew, before PM Modi's nationwide curfew till May 3. As of now, the Maharashtra government has stated that there was no possibility of lifting the lockdown in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region and the Pune Metropolitan Region anytime soon.
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