rajkot amid a rise in covid19 cases and the threat posed by the highly transmissible omicron variant gujarat bjp mla from botad saurabh patel on monday shared videos on facebook of a night cricket tournament organized by his party in which a large part of the crowd could be seen without masks and not adhering to social distancing normspatel former state energy minister however defended himself saying there was no covid19 case currently in his constituency botad where the tournament was held he also said the tournament was launched nearly a month ago when the number of cases was negligiblemeanwhile range ig bhavnagar ashok yadav order the botad superintendent of police to probe how such an event was organized amidst covid19 concerns i saw that video and have instructed the superintendent of police botad to investigate how this event was organized and submit a report yadav told toi the videos that went viral were of the tournament final match played on saturday between two wards on the ground of a government high school and in it spectators many without masks can be seen running onto the pitch as part of victory celebrations former india cricketer munaf patel along with mla patel handed over the tournament trophiessaurabh patel claimed except for the final few people turned up and all covid19 norms were followed during the other matches adding that 140 teams from his assembly area took part in the tournamentthere wasnt so much crowd in the previous matches people turned up in large numbers for the final which was beyond our expectations we decided to complete the game so as not to disappoint those who had come the mla frombotad saidgujarat has seen a steady rise in cases in the past few days with the active tally now standing at 948 on sundaythe states caseload is 829359 including 10113 deaths as of sunday evening