Prime Minister Narendra Modi through video interaction on Wednesday has urged the citizens of the country to take care of nine families as Navratri pledge for the 21-day lockdown period if they can afford.

PM Modi spoke to tyhe citizens on the first day of 9-day Navratri festival, wherein he said taking this pledge would be a “true Navratri” celebration.

Interacting with citizens of Varanasi through a video, PM Modi said, “Today is the first day of Navratri, you all must be busy in performing rituals and offering prayers, but still you took out time for this interaction, I’m grateful to all of you. I pray to Goddess Shailputri to give us the strength to fight country’s battle against coronavirus.”

PM Modi added, “Mahabharat war was won in 18 days, this war the whole country is fighting against corona will take 21 days. Our aim is to win this war in 21 days.” PM Narendra Modi also appealed to the entire country to not discriminate against medical staff at any cost.

Doctors across the country have sought government intervention, citing that a number of their colleagues were facing eviction by house owners in the fear of medical staffers carrying the deadly virus.

PM Modi said, “Have received news from some quarters that has deeply hurt me. I appeal to all citizens, if you see ill-treatment being meted out to any medical staff, please go there and make people understand what they are doing is wrong.”

PM Modi said that doctors and other medical staffs are at par with God as they are busy in saving lives without caring about themselves.

“In this time of crisis, any person wearing a white coat in a hospital is an incarnation of God. It is these people who are saving us all from death. They are putting their lives in danger to do so,” he said.

Talking about people’s support during 22 March ‘Janata curfew’ PM Modi said, “In our country, the sentiment to publicly express gratitude to those who are serving the nation is growing stronger day by day.”

The government on Wednesday gave power to zonal Deputy Commissioners to take “strict penal action” against landlords who have been forcing doctors and paramedical staff, engaged in fighting the novel coronavirus, to vacate their rented premises.

According to a government notification, such behaviour “not only strikes at the root of the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic but also tantamount to obstruction of duty of essential services”.

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