KOLKATA 23 APRIL: As the second wave of Coronavirus pandemic is raging and even when two phases of election is still pending, chief minister Mamata Banerjee is slamming the Central government in various ways. Banerjee is holding the Centre responsible for the deterioration of the crisis.
According to political analysts, this is supposed to give the TMC leaders enough political mileage over her rival the BJP as the saffron party seems to have already gone into a Blackfoot over this crisis.
Imankalyan Lahiri, a senior political analysts and a professor of International Relations Jadavpur University, said, “The second wave of
COVID-19, during the ongoing Assembly election has given an added political mileage to the Trinamool Congress. Now, TMC is countering BJP, for failing to tackle the crisis at an early stage when the second wave had not hit India. Even Banerjee alleged that for the past two months, the task force constituted by the Centre had not convened any meeting on how the states could possibly plan a strategy to contain the spread of COVID-19 infections in the country. It needs to be seen whether the second wave of COVID-19 will bring any change in BJP’s vote share or not. That, only time can really define.”
Biswanath Chakraborty, another political analyst, said, “Although, Banerjee skipped the meeting on March 17 and April 8 on COVID-19 management with chief secretary attending the virtual meeting on COVID-19 management, Mamata’s remark on Friday that she was not being invited to attend the COVID-19 management virtual meetings, has only further created a furore in the political circle and gave an added political mileage to the TMC.”
On Friday, chief minister Mamata Banerjee alleged that at a party office in Gujarat BJP is providing free vaccination, and blamed Prime
Minister Narendra Modi for failing to tackle the COVID-19 crisis. Today, the BJP has announced that if they come to power in the state, they will provide free vaccination to all people of Bengal. On the other hand, Mamata Banerjee has claimed that she has constituted a fund of ₹100 Crore for the COVID-19 management and from May 5 onwards, people will be given free vaccination.
Moreover, Banerjee termed the ongoing Coronavirus crisis as a man-made disaster on Wednesday.
Meanwhile campaigning for the West Bengal election 2021, Banerjee came down hard on the Central government over the deteriorating COVID-19 situation. She hit out at the Prime Minister narendra Modi, saying that ‘If you can’t handle the (COVID-19) situation, you should give up your chair’.
On Friday, the West Bengal chief secretary also wrote to the health secretary and expressed objection to diversion of oxygen outside the state. The letter mentioned that Union government allotted 200 MT of oxygen from different plants located in West Bengal to outside the state. As per the current patient load and the rising trend of infection, it is expected that the consumption level in West Bengal will radically rise to roughly 450 MT per day in the next couple of weeks. Hence, present allocation of liquid oxygen to outside the state will jeopardise the medical treatment of COVID-19 patients in the state. Thus, the state government is requesting the Union government not to divert the medical oxygen available in the state to elsewhere.
Further, Mamata Banerjee has also requested the Election Commission to club the last two phases of election due to the ongoing pandemic situation. With the rise in fresh Coronavirus cases in the past two weeks, Banerjee has appealed to the EC a several times to club the remaining phases of election, now. The TMC delegation also sent a memorandum to EC on this regard, but a decision on clubbing of phases is yet to be taken.
However, the EC refused to accept their appeal and on Thursday night, EC issued an order banning public rallies, road shows, padyatras in view of the rising COVID-19 cases.
On April 22, chief minister Mamata Banerjee, wrote a letter to PM urging him for a universal COVID-19 vaccine pricing for all states, and opposed the difference in vaccine pricing.
Trinamool Congress blamed BJP for getting hundreds of people from outside the state during the election and resulted in the increase in
spread of the virus. Banerjee said her government would increase the COVID bed count by at
least 20 per cent and ruled out any form of a complete lockdown. Even, Banerjee claimed that despite Centre’s mismanagement in handling COVID-19 crisis, and with the elections on, Banerjee has already instructed the officials to ramp up the infrastructure in private and government hospitals to cope up with this current crisis. Banerjee also blamed the BJP for “getting hundreds of people from outside states to Bengal”, which she said may result in more infections, and questioned the presence of around 1.5 lakh central security personnel in the state.
What BJP leaders say
According to BJP leaders, despite people facing a critical situation and with the hike in number of deaths, Banerjee is indulging in politics, instead of helping people. The state government‘s task force has not convened any meeting for the last three months on containing the spread of Coronavirus. In fact, the state has only indulged in blaming the Centre for the mismanagement.
Shamik Bhattacharya, a BJP leader, said, “At a time when the duty of both the Centre and state is to come forward together to cope up with the COVID-19 crisis, Banerjee is engaging in mere politics over this pandemic situation, instead of joining hands to fight this crisis.“