Thiruvananthapuram, Jul 29 (IANS): The Kerala unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday lashed out at Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. The BJP has asked the Chief Minister to stop wasting time in daily hour-long press meets. It, instead, has asked Vijayan to use his time to effectively tackle the Covid-19 pandemic.

State BJP chief K. Surendran said: "The ideal situation would be to issue medical bulletins in the morning and evening. Along with the Chief Minister, two -- a state Minister and the Chief Secretary -- are also sitting silent. What Vijayan should ideally do is to emulate his counterparts in the rest of the country, where they are full time engaged in Covid control activities."

At present there are 10,091 corona positive cases in the state, while the total number of positive cases starting from the first case registered on January 30 is 20,896.

Targeting the state government, Surendran said: "People are not getting their corona test reports on time. The Central government had directed to conduct corona tests at all government and private colleges in states, but the state government has not made it effective so far. This is the reason why Covid cases are rising here."

"The state government should also ensure that there is no rip-off of people in the name of a Covid test," he added.