No Politics over Tests

When the Rajasthan government first rejected the rapid testing kits over concerns that they were faulty, several state BJP leaders approached New Delhi alleging that the Ashok Gehlot-led government was politicising the issue. But, according to the buzz in the Prime Minister’s Office, Narendra Modi’s reaction was nothing like what they were expecting. Modi wanted to know if the kits were indeed faulty. The Centre had imported around one million of these kits from China recently. Modi got the Minister of Health and Family Welfare to check with the Indian Council of Medical Research. The body in turn asked all states to pause using the kits for two days until they were examined.

Yogi’s Dilemma

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has been proactive in bringing home students from his state stranded elsewhere. He recently arranged buses to bring students back from Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. He hasn’t shown such alacrity when it comes to bringing back migrant labourers. The government is under tremendous pressure to bring them back. But there is a catch. Many labourers who wanted to return are now confused. Several of their employers and
factory owners have apparently told them that those who leave for their homes will not be re-employed once the lockdown is withdrawn.

Eye of Pain

Lockdowns have put a spanner in many travel plans. One person who is particularly suffering is Abhishek Banerjee, the Trinamool Congress MP and party chief Mamata Banerjee’s nephew. His eyes had been badly injured when he got involved in a road accident back in 2016, one that even Narendra Modi had enquired about when Banerjee had met the Prime Minister last year. Although he underwent a complicated operation in Chennai, Banerjee still has difficulty seeing with one
of his eyes. After being advised to see specialists in New York, appointments had been made and the trip finalised. But then, the pandemic struck.

Kerala Model in Bengal?

One state that has managed to bring the Covid-19 crisis in control is Kerala. The CPM and Left parties now believe they can use this success to boost their campaign in next year’s Bengal election, and hopefully, revive the party there. Will that work? Not so, say BJP sources. Kerala succeeded because of more social awareness and a good healthcare system. Besides, the Left parties in Bengal and Kerala have never managed to bury their differences and help each other.

Picture This

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray is in a fix. He needs to become a member of the state legislature—either the Assembly or the Council—by May 27th. The Constitution mandates that a chief minister, if unelected to the legislature, become a member within six months of appointment. Since entry into the state Assembly via a by-election now looks improbable because of the Covid-19 crisis, he wants to enter the legislature through nomination to the Council. But Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari isn’t playing ball. Since such nominations are meant for individuals with specialised knowledge in fields like the arts or the sciences, Koshyari is sitting on the file seeking the nomination. Thackeray’s supporters contend that the Chief Minister is an avid photographer, and hence, qualifies as an artist.

Bureaucrats to the Fore

The Covid-19 crisis has brought two bureaucrats, Punya Salila Srivastava and Lav Agarwal, into public focus. Both were picked by the Prime Minister and the Home Minister to be the faces of the Government in this crisis. Srivastava, around 50, and a former student of St Stephen’s College, is a joint secretary in the home ministry. Agarwal, 48, and a former IIT-Delhi student, is a joint secretary in the health ministry. A third—Raman Gangakhedkar, an epidemiologist from the Indian Council of Medical Research—has joined the team recently. The three are being spoken of in the same vein as the celebrated trio of Nirupama Rao and Raminder Jassal (from the external affairs ministry) and General Bikram Singh were during the Kargil War and Pokhran-II nuclear tests.

The Tablighi Question

Aam Aadmi Party MLA Shoaib Iqbal is unhappy. His party chief Arvind Kejriwal, who keeps a logbook of coronavirus cases, has made a separate list of those belonging to the Tablighi Jamaat. Once the BJP started campaigning against the group, the Kejriwal government, never one to be caught on the back foot, began to issue FIRs against those involved in the Jamaat. But Iqbal is upset. He thinks this will hurt his Muslim vote bank.

Pandemic Polls

As elections near, most notably in Bihar, including several by-elections later this year, the big question understandably is about what impact the pandemic may have. One large election that did take place abroad, in South Korea, will not please those in the opposition. Before the pandemic, South Korea was gripped with a strong anti-incumbency sentiment. But the election has brought no change and President Moon Jae-in’s party is back in power. In India, the opposition parties are now sweating if the coronavirus management is going to trump all other issues and they will thus have to warm their benches for some more years.

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Ashok GehlotCoronavirusCovid-19Mamata BanerjeeNarendra ModiPandemics