Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was chided by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for starting a live telecast amid the virtual meeting being held on April 23.
Modi was chairing the meet, held over video-conference, with the chief ministers of 10 most affected states in India due to COVID-19.
During the meeting, Kejriwal began a live telecast while raising his concerns before the prime minister.
Modi, irked by the Delhi CM's decision to go live, sternly condemned him. "What is happening... this is strictly against our tradition, our protocol... that some Chief Minister is showing a live telecast of an in-house meeting," he was heard as saying in the portion of the meeting aired by news channels.
"This is not appropriate, we should always maintain restraint," Modi further added.
Kejriwal, after being rebuked by the prime minister, said he "would be careful about this in the future".
Also read: Big tragedy may happen due to oxygen shortage in hospitals: Arvind Kejriwal at PM Modi's COVID meet
The Delhi Chief Minister's Office (CMO) later expressed regret over the incident. "The CM address was shared live because there has never been any instruction, written or verbal, from central govt that the said interaction could not be shared live," it said.
"There have been multiple occasions of similar interactions where matters of public importance which had no confidential information were shared live. However, if any inconvenience was caused we highly regret that," the statement further added.
Meanwhile, sources in the central government alleged that "Kejriwal used the entire PM-CM meet platform for playing politics", news agency PTI reported.
"He raised the point of airlifting oxygen, but did not know that it is already being done. He spoke about the 'Oxygen Express' but Railway sources say he has not communicated anything about it to them," a source told PTI.
"He chose to spread lies on vaccine prices despite knowing that the Centre does not keep one vaccine dose with itself and shares with states only. All CMs spoke about what they are doing to improve the situation. However, Kejriwal had nothing to speak on what he is doing," the source was further quoted as saying.
Notably, Delhi has emerged as one of the topmost virus hotspots in the country. The national capital recorded 306 COVID-19 deaths and 26,169 cases on April 22, with a positivity rate of 36.24 per cent, the highest since the pandemic began a year ago.
City hospitals were grappling with depleting oxygen supply and, stretched to their limits, some requested the Delhi government to transfer patients to other healthcare facilities.
With PTI inputs.
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