6th minister detected +ve

Maharashtra Minister of Public Works and Environment Sanjay Bansode tested Covid-19 positive on Sunday. Bansode, who was elected on an NCP ticket from the Udgir assembly seat in Latur district in the 2019 assembly elections, had been unwell for a few days and complaining of fever and body ache. He has been under medical observation at a leading hospital in Mumbai.

Bansode was camping in his constituency, where corona cases were on the rise. He was constantly visiting affected areas, patients and hospitals. Doctors attending to him said it was likely this had caused him to get infected.

Bansode is the sixth minister in Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray's council of ministers to be detected Covidpositive. Ministers Jitendra Awhad, Ashok Chavan and Dhananjay Munde, who had earlier tested positive, are now cured.

Last week was particularly bad for the Maharashtra cabinet, with Minister of Ports and Mumbai District Guardian Minister Aslam Shaikh and Minister of State for Revenue

and Rural Development Abdul Sattar too testing positive. Minister of Soil and Water Conservation Shankarrao Gadakh-Patil was home-quarantined af ter his wife tested positive. Further, NCP leader and Rajya Sabha member Fauzia Khan, from Parbhani in Marathwada, tested positive around the same time. Congress leader and member of legislative council Amar Rajurkar, who is Public Works Minister and Ashok Chavan’s close confidant, too was found to be positive and is undergoing treatment in Nanded.