COVID-19: Sonia Gandhi donates Rs 1.17 crore from MPLAD fund for her Lok Sabha constituency Rae Bareli

Sonia Gandhi, who is a Lok Sabha MP from Uttar Pradesh’s Rae Bareli, penned a letter to the DM and said that she wants to contribute Rs 1.17 lakh from her MPLAD fund.

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New Delhi: Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on Friday (April 23) urged the Rae Bareli District Magistrate to utilize her Member of Parliament Local Area Development (MPLAD) fund to combat rising cases of COVID-19 virus in the city.

Gandhi, who is a Lok Sabha MP from Uttar Pradesh’s Rae Bareli, penned a letter to the DM and said that she wants to contribute Rs 1.17 lakh from her MPLAD fund for the safety of the people from the deadly coronavirus. Further, she requested the DM to employ her funds for purchasing COVID-19 related equipment.

“At present, COVID-19 pandemic is widespread in the district besides the entire country, due to which the public is facing extreme difficulties. Therefore, my MPLAD fund should be spent in purchasing necessary equipment and other items, to save the people of my constituency Rae Bareli from the deadly pandemic,” the letter by Gandhi read. 

Congress interim president and MP from Rae Bareli (Uttar Pradesh), Sonia Gandhi writes to the District Magistrate, asking him to utilise her remaining MPLAD funds in the fight against #COVID19 pandemic. pic.twitter.com/CIoBE36V4f — ANI (@ANI) April 24, 2021

On April 17, Sonia Gandhi had slammed the central government for its "gross unpreparedness" and "adhocism" in tackling the COVID-19 crisis. Chairing a meet of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), Gandhi had said that despite a year to prepare, Centre is caught off guard as the second wave of coronavirus hit. 

Discussing ways of dealing with the coronavirus crisis, Gandhi had demanded that the government should reduce the immunization age to 25 years from the current 45 years. 

On Friday, Uttar Pradesh reported a record 37,238 new COVID-19 cases, pushing the total infection tally to over 10 lakh. While 196 fatalities took the death toll to 10,737 in the state. The active cases have reached 2,73,653 in the state, the Health Ministry data said.