Effective management of COVID-19 is emerging as an important factor in the Bharatiya Janta Party’s electoral pitch in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, something the Opposition has not been able to counter aggressively.
In the run-up to the Assembly elections, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has been visiting COVID dedicated hospitals in different districts of western Uttar Pradesh that will vote in the first and second phases of elections. He supervises the preparations to control the third wave, shares the number of active cases and vaccinations completed in the district with the local media and then holds political rallies in the Assembly constituencies of the district.
On Sunday, while addressing political rallies in Bulandshahr and Hapur, he said like the BJP government in the State controlled the riots, it would wipe off the coronavirus as well. He emphasised on the “free vaccine and free ration” that is being distributed during the pandemic.
SP chief’s statement
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav’s statement describing the COVID vaccine as “BJP vaccine” continues to haunt him. In Hapur, Mr. Adityanath said if it was a BJP vaccine then more than 90% population of the State had received it for free and they would now vote for the party. According to official figures, more than 70% of the State’s eligible population had received both doses of vaccines.
On Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi praised Mr. Adityanath for taking time out for supervision of COVID dedicated hospitals during the election season.
According to official documents, 23,164 people have succumbed to COVID-19 but these numbers are always written with an asterisk, signifying the actual number will be shared after death audit. At present there are 59,601 active cases in the State.
Observers feel it was part of the BJP’s electoral strategy to make people forget the alleged mismanagement during the second wave by raising the free vaccination and free ration pitch.
However, a BJP leader from Hapur, requesting anonymity, said the Chief Minister could present the bigger picture to the electorate but the worker on the ground was avoiding discussions around COVID-19. “Because the party itself lost many MLAs and workers due to lack of timely treatment. I myself got COVID and finding a hospital bed with oxygen proved to be a nightmare,” he said. In west Uttar Pradesh, the BJP lost ministers Chetan Chauhan, MLA from Naugawan Saadat in Amroha, and Vijay Kashyap, MLA from Charthwal in Muzaffarnagar, to COVID-19 during the second wave.
Honorarium, incentives
However, he added, the government had been able to arrest the growing disquiet among Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) and auxiliary nurses, who act as influencers in their communities, by increasing their honorarium and incentives in December.
Sandeep Chaudhary, national spokesperson of the Rashtriya Lok Dal, said that after the elections were announced Mr. Adityanath should not use his constitutional position for electoral gains and the party would raise the issue at appropriate platforms. “We know it is useless to expect ethical politics from the BJP but people in rural areas have not forgotten the devastation caused during the second wave when the government was missing. People have seen bodies floating in the Ganga,” said Mr. Chaudhary.
However, Opposition leaders admit in private it was hard to counter the BJP’s free ration scheme during the pandemic because it reached the lowest strata that votes the most. In villages, across party lines, those who are financially better, could be easily heard cribbing how the poor got so much that they sold off some of it.
Observers said the Opposition had not been able to target the government on the anomalies in the vaccination drive in the last few months. Recently cases have emerged from Prayagraj, Mau and Aligarh where people have received vaccination certificates without getting the jab.
On Sunday, a senior professor of History in Aligarh Muslim University shared his experience on social media. “My eldest sister died of COVID-19 at a Lucknow hospital during the second wave on April 28, 2021. But still, first the CoWIN site sent a message on January 28, that you have been successfully vaccinated with the second dose, and then soon enough the certificate of the same could be downloaded from the mobile number through which she had registered.” He said there were allegations how the official agencies were fudging figures to make the government shine as people-friendly. “Yesterday, the allegation shockingly turned into a fact for me.”
Mohd. Shameem, professor in the Department of TB and Chest Diseases in Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College and Hospital, said political leaders loved to take credit but the fact was that the second wave had a devastating effect the world over and India was no different. “In the third wave, we are better prepared and as Omicron is not causing severe illness, things are looking brighter. However, for a political leader to describe the vaccine as a party product was unwarranted and unscientific,” said Prof. Shameem, the chief investigator of Covaxin trials in JNMCH.
