BHOPAL: A former BJP MLA who joined the Congress ahead of 2018 assembly elections is among the 157 people who have tested positive for the deadly novel Coronavirus in Madhya Pradesh over the past 24 hours.
The former legislator who represented one of the assembly constituencies of Bhopal district on a BJP ticket between 2008 and 2013 is among the 32 persons who have tested positive in Bhopal.
Importantly, the former MLA who tested positive for COVID-19 was the one who was behind former CM Digvijaya Singh’s ambitious daily food packets distribution initiative since last few weeks in Bhopal.
It was at the kitchen in the farmhouse of the ex-MLA in Lalghati area of Bhopal that the food was being cooked for distribution among needy people in the city.
He is the first major politician in the state to have tested positive for the virus.
Earlier, two COVID-19 positive BJP municipal councilors, including one in Indore and another in Ujjain had died during the course of treatment at hospitals.
The COVID positive politician had met ex-CM Digvijaya Singh recently in Bhopal.
In Indore – one of the COVID-19 hotspots in the country – four Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) employees, including a health official were among the 78 persons who tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 24 hours.
Two more deaths were also reported from Indore, where 159 patients were discharged from various hospitals after turning negative for the killer virus.
As per the state health bulletin for May 10, with 157 new cases being reported over last 24 hours, the state’s COVID-19 positive headcount rose to 3614.
Four deaths over the same period, including two deaths in Indore, took the total death count to 215.
Also, 196 patients, including 159 patients in Indore (among them a ghazal singer and a 29 days baby girl) were discharged from hospitals in the state after turning negative for the deadly virus.
With this the total number of active patients at the COVID hospitals stood at 1723.
For the fifth day in running, the number of patients discharged from hospitals across MP outnumbered the total new positive cases.
So far 1676 patients have been discharged from hospitals across MP, after turning negative for the killer viral infection. This means that the recovery rate of COVID-19 patients has peaked in MP to 46.37%.