Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury writes to Om Birla, seeks special Parliament session over COVID-19 crisis

New Delhi [India], May 11 (ANI): Leader of Congress Party in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Monday wrote to Lower House Speaker Om Birla requesting the convening of a special session of Parliament on current health emergency due to COVID-19.
In the letter he said, the collective wisdom of the House which will emerge from the discussion will guide the nation to recover from this health emergency. The discussion will give important inputs to the government to frame program and policies which will help this country recover from this pandemic.
"As you are aware, the corona pandemic is inflicting havoc on the health system of the country. The entire health infrastructure has stretched to its limits and almost collapsed. The daily fresh cases have crossed the grim 4 lakh mark. The second wave of this corona pandemic has created a sense of fear, frustration, gloom and helplessness in the entire country. The fear of death has come to knock at the doorstep of each and every family," Chowdhury wrote in the letter.
The Congress leader mentioned the report of an international medical journal.
"In this context, I would like to quote the recently published Report by The Lancet, a world-leading medical journal on India's Covid emergency. It states and I quote: The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation estimates that India will see a staggering one million deaths from COVID-19 by August 1."
Chowdhury emphasised that the collective opinion and inputs of the members of the House will help the government to frame the policies going forward in order to tackle the COVID situation.
"In view of the above-mentioned disastrous and precarious health situation in the country, I would urge you to kindly convene a special (COVID crisis) session of Parliament. This session may not be necessarily the physical presence of Members and it may be held in any other mode," Chowdhury urged.
India registered 3,66,161 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, said the Union Health Ministry on Monday morning. With this, the cumulative count of the cases has gone up to 2,26,62,575.
As many as 3,754 people succumbed to the virus in the country in the last 24 hours, taking the cumulative death toll to 2,46,116.
As per the government data, at present there are 37,45,237 active cases of COVID-19 in the country. (ANI)