Glaring difference

The difference between New India and the one of yore becomes obvious time and again. When the Narendra Modi government decided to throw the Delhi chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, under the bus after Singapore was upset with him identifying a Covid-19 variant with that country, it brought back memories of a very different era. There was a time not so long ago when another prime minister, Manmohan Singh, did not allow his politics to eclipse his duties as the head of government. When the then Gujarat CM, Narendra Modi, had his visa to the United States of America revoked in 2005 over his handling of the carnage in his state in 2002, the United Progressive Alliance government summoned the US ambassador in Delhi and registered India’s protest over such an action against a constitutionally elected CM. India asked for a review of the decision. Singh acted like the prime minister of India, not a partisan politician, even though some of his own party members favoured the visa ban.

Nitin Gadkari File picture

Job well done

The PM may be facing brickbats for his handling of the second Covid-19 wave but one of his cabinet colleagues, the road transport minister, Nitin Gadkari, is reaping rich accolades. The Maharashtra CM, Uddhav Thackeray, has praised Gadkari for the help he has extended in battling Covid in the state. Gadkari, who hails from Maharashtra and represents the Nagpur Lok Sabha constituency, has gone out of the way to help out the state government. His “innovative ideas” in controlling the surge in Nagpur are being widely hailed.

Had the praise been limited to the state level, it would have been tolerable for Delhi. But things appear to be going further. Indirectly, voices from here and there seem to be saying that had Gadkari been in-charge, the Covid situation would not have gone out of hand. Some Nagpur-based news portals have written that Gadkari should be made chief epidemic officer. Online comments that Gadkari would make a “better PM” have also been spotted. All this will test the tolerance of the present regime and may not augur well for Gadkari.

Story teller

Yogi Adityanath is making life easy for his successor. His daily claims of tracing, testing and treating Covid-19 cases across Uttar Pradesh fly in the face of reports even by government-friendly media which show that medical teams have not visited most of the villages in the heartland. There is hardly any village in Uttar Pradesh where people are not suffering from Covid-19 or dying in the absence of treatment. According to data collected from the different cremation grounds and the ghats of the Ganga in Kanpur district in the last month, over 8,000 people have either been cremated or buried in the sand along the riverbank. Adityanath’s officers put this number far lower. It is the same in Agra, Fatehpur, Rae Bareli, Ghazipur, Ballia and so on. The CM claims his government is doing a great job and the rate of recovery is 92.5 per cent. Adityanath is making it easy for his successor, if there is to be one, to bank on falsehoods.

Bitter rivalry

Politics refuses to take a back seat even during the pandemic. The Odisha CM, Naveen Patnaik, and the Union minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, the poster boy of the BJP in the state, appear to be engaged in a fierce battle to claim credit for Odisha not only meeting its own medical oxygen needs but also being able to supply it to other states. Soon after Patnaik shared news and pictures of Odisha supplying oxygen to needy states, Pradhan, who holds the petroleum and natural gas portfolio, started posting about medical oxygen being sent to other states from the SAIL-run Rourkela steel plant. He even hit back at the Patnaik government when it criticized the Centre for inadequate supply of vaccines. Training his guns on the state’s health secretary, Pradhan accused him of misleading the public.

Personal bonds

The Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, has taken care to protect the personal relations senior leaders had with the family in spite of political tensions created by the letter written by some of them, known as the group of 23, about the pathetic state of affairs in the party. Insiders reveal that Sonia was in touch with Ghulam Nabi Azad even after the controversial public meeting where Azad praised the PM, Narendra Modi. Even Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has maintained close ties with some of these leaders. Sonia also talked to Anand Sharma, another signatory to the controversial letter, when he was hospitalized owing to Covid.

Even the G-23 leaders have the highest regard for Sonia: “Our concerns are political, not personal. We want the Congress to regain its glory. Some younger leaders failed to understand this and condemned us as traitors. That was unfortunate,” one of them said, ruling out the possibility of their exit from the Congress or joining any other party. But there is no denying the fact that some personal bitterness has cropped up about Rahul Gandhi’s style of functioning and these leaders shower praises on Sonia during informal conversations even as they don’t attack Rahul. It is for Rahul to heal these rifts.

Kanhaiya Kumar File picture

Footnote

A Hindi paper recently printed snaps of Tejashwi Yadav, Kanhaiya Kumar and Chirag Paswan regarding their absence from Covid relief work. The image renewed attacks on Kumar for being a “celebrity”. Convalescing from Covid-19, Kumar chose to ignore the jibes and continue his Twitter silence. He used the time in isolation to coordinate the meagre resource of six oxygen cylinders in Delhi and 16 in Begusarai. Kumar now hopes to head back to Begusarai to help strengthen the services of the CPI-run hospital there and 10 voluntary ambulances.