Sir — It was quite heartening to see the West Bengal chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, sit in silent protest by herself against the 24-hour campaigning ban imposed on her by the Election Commission. While her comments that prompted the ban have been widely discussed, it must also be remembered that she has been targeted in the vilest of language by the top leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Her resolve to prevent the saffronization of Bengal in the face of misogynistic bullying by the ruling party at the Centre is commendable. The next couple of weeks will be crucial for preserving Bengal’s free, inclusive fabric. One hopes the state will vote wisely.

Darshana Gupta,
Calcutta

Damage control

Sir — Alarmingly, Delhi has surpassed Mumbai to become the Indian city that is worst hit by Covid-19. In the light of this, the weekend curfew in the national capital announced by the chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, is a sensible decision (“Delhi weekend curfew”, April 16). In an effort to check the frightening surge in cases — the city recorded 17,282 fresh cases of Covid-19 on Wednesday, which is the highest single-day surge in the capital since the pandemic started — Delhi will be under weekend curfew till April 30, pending further orders.

However, will this be enough to reverse the damage done as a result of weeks of carelessness, both on the part of citizens and on the part of political leaders? The foremost leaders of the land — the prime minister and the Union home minister — have been setting a terrible example for people all over the country by encouraging crowded Bharatiya Janata Party rallies in poll-bound states. No Covid-19 protocols are followed at these rallies; Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have also kept tellingly mum on the huge surge in cases in the gatherings at the Kumbh Mela. If these are the precedents being set by the two most powerful leaders in the country, it stands to reason that the coronavirus will spread like wildfire all over India, including — perhaps especially in — the national capital.

Aarti Nair,
Delhi

Sir — Delhi has now overtaken Mumbai in the daily Covid-19 infection tally by a significant margin. Doctors and others in the medical fraternity are reportedly perplexed by the massive surge in cases, with many opining that new, more infectious mutations of the virus may have emerged. Given the steady rise in cases over the past few weeks when no one was paying proper attention, it was only a matter of time before the surge hit Delhi, which had already been groaning under the weight of cases during the first wave of the pandemic.

It is heartening that the weekend curfew has been imposed and the government has taken other measures to break the chain of transmission. For instance, there will be no in-house dining in restaurants and cinema halls will be allowed to operate at only 30 per cent capacity. However, these measures should have ideally been taken a while ago. Instead, life in the capital and in other parts of the country was allowed to resume as though the pandemic had ended. This complacence was perhaps fuelled in part by the vaccine roll-out. With strict compliance, Delhi can still manage to overcome this latest hurdle, but the government and citizens should have been far more careful.

Aranya Mitra,
Calcutta

Record maker

Sir — It is a matter of pride for Indian cricket fans that the captain of the men’s cricket team, Virat Kohli, has been named the ‘one-day international cricketer of the 2010s’ in the 2021 edition of the prestigious Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack. This is a stupendous achievement for Kohli, but his fans and lovers of the game will not be surprised. After all, Kohli, who is considered to be one of the best captains that Indian cricket has produced till date, has had an enviable record of playing in the past decade. There is no dearth of extraordinary performances if one looks at his career. Kohli has already made a name for himself as a cricketing legend. This new development bears testimony to that.

Sourish Misra,
Calcutta