While Prime Minister Narendra Modi was getting several congratulatory messages for completing seven years in office on May 30, he, in his address to the nation “Mann ki Batt” was primarily focussing on thanking the COVID warriors. Much of talk was devoted to those who are engaged in manufacturing and transporting oxygen. Yes, India has never seen a problem related to health of such magnitude, ever.
Given the surge in COVID cases over the past one month amid the devastating second wave, the national president of the world’s largest political party the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) JP Nadda has said that no celebratory event will be held to mark the anniversary and various welfare programmes will be held instead. Through the ‘Seva Hi Sangathan’ (service is organisation) programme, the BJP wants to express its gratitude towards the common people that have brought them to power. The service to the people includes mask distribution, hand sanitisers, helping patients get hospital beds, COVID medicines or administrative assistance.
The party has envisaged to create awareness for COVID infection, vaccination, and fight against vaccine hesitancy, especially in rural areas where access to transport, internet, CoWin registration are limited. However, ironically, the urban areas are no better as a majority of the people between the age group of 18-44 years are clamouring for a vaccine and are busy playing the ‘fastest finger first’ on their laptops to get their slots booked. Nadda has asked its cadres to reach out to one lakh villages which are badly affected by COVID. The reason being, that the ruling party BJP had received maximum support from the rural poor in the last general elections in 2019.
Now with these rural areas and villages reeling under the pandemic with little access to medical facilities, the finger of blame is pointed more at the Centre than the State governments as PM Modi has been the face of COVID containment since last year. Very soon the State Assembly elections are due in six BJP-ruled states — Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Manipur and our very own Goa. Even though the party’s main national opposition, the Indian National Congress finds itself lost in the corner, observing the recent performance in Assam, Kerala and West Bengal State elections, BJP cannot afford to slip. The BJP president has asked all Central leaders, Union ministers and State ministers of the party to visit at least two villages where they will distribute materials like sanitizers, masks, oxymeters and food material. They will also make people aware about the vaccination. An implication of this is that the government has failed to deliver health services and has to rely on this exercise to reach out to the people.
On the economic front, the NDA government’s performance at the Centre has been dismal and the middle class segment is unhappy with the way they are being treated. India’s performance in the economy in the last few years was at its worst, since the post-liberalisation era of the early 1990s. The government’s mishandling of the COVID pandemic, the new culture of spontaneous and ad hoc decision-making shows slim chances of a robust economic recovery, at least till the next general elections. Interestingly a country like neighbouring Bangladesh has performed much better than India in terms of economic indices.
Several media reports mentioned that prior to the pandemic, India’s youth unemployment rate for 2019 had touched 23 per cent. It’s annual GDP performance in the year 2020 crashed to – (negative) 8.0 per cent, the worst amongst all developing nations (Bangladesh grew at 3.8 per cent in 2020). As regards COVID fatality per million population, India stands now at 212 (as per May 2021). Yes, and Goa was at one point of time leading in the country amidst COVID positive cases.
It is very bewildering to imagine that how can a country like India, which has been one of the world’s biggest vaccine producers and was rated as one of the fastest growing economies of the world is presenting such dismal performances on the economy report card. Agreed, that the industrial sector has been badly hit but according to the expert economists the pharma and health sector, during this pandemic, has done far better and has never seen such a surge in their profit.
It is time for BJP to tie up its shoe strings correctly and in right shoes to ensure that the economy is salvaged from the plummeting level and the middle class, honest taxpayers are rewarded for their unstinted support even during the pandemic, to the government by means of paying taxes on time and as per timeline set by finance ministry.
