Even as West Bengal enters the final phase of the polls and the Covid count in this relatively safer state shoots up to 8000 plus cases every day, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has announced far-reaching schemes for the people of the state, once she regains power. The results of the elections will be announced by the Election Commission on May 2.
In a press conference held in Malda on April 19, 2021, she said that 200 patients in the state are critical but there is no reason to panic. The government will take all necessary steps and very quickly. A special task force has been constituted to deal with the pandemic. Plus, 200 safe homes with 11,000 beds will be created.
There will be 4,500 more beds in government hospitals, even as West Bengal tops the list in the country with 10,000 beds in government hospitals, much ahead of UP and Gujarat, two BJP-ruled states where there is mass suffering and tragedy due to the complete collapse of the health infrastructure.
In UP, cremations are happening in public parks and pavements while the lack of oxygen is leading to a crisis unprecedented in the state. People are literally dying without any medical help. In contrast, Bengal is relatively safer and its health infrastructure is stable with totally free medical relief and treatment, including beds, in government hospitals.
Mamata Banerjee has also announced that there will be 400 new ambulances, only 50 per cent work from home, including in government offices, will be allowed, while several hotels will be turned into safe homes – a model successfully implemented during the quarantine period in Kerala. Schools will be shut from April 20 for summer holidays, and private sector schools have been asked to follow the government school model.
She has called upon the people of Bengal to not be terror-stricken at all, reassured them that the government will be out there to directly give medical and other assistance to the people of the state. Indeed, in many of her public meetings she has said that she reached out to the migrant workers, the poor, the ordinary folks, and people with essential commodities, food and medicine during the lockdown, even while the Centre refused to help one inch. “Where were they when I was reaching out to the people during the lockdown, the migrant workers and the poor, organising trains for them to return, organizing daily ration and medicine? They were then sitting protected inside their comfort zones in Delhi, becoming healthier, and growing their beard(s)” she had said in her last rally at Nandigram before polling.
There has been a widespread rumour in Bengal currently that after the polling results are announced, there will be either a full or partial lockdown. This has created a sense of panic, for instance, among the poor and daily wage workers, including several people in the service and manufacturing sector, who are still recovering after the draconian lockdown announced with just about four hour notice, and that too in the night, by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in March 2020. It was this unilateral and thoughtless, unplanned declaration that had led to mass migration by tens of thousands of migrant workers of the vast unorganised sector, and small-scale industries, which had already been hit terribly by demonitisation and GST earlier. Images of men and women, with sacks on their heads and holding little children, walking for miles on highways for days in the scorching heat, even as the Centre totally ignored them or systematically failed to provide even basic relief like food or water, still remains etched in the public mind.
Mamata Banerjee has therefore announced that there is no reason for a lockdown or curfew in the immediate future. There will also be no night curfew because it is not going to help at this moment. There is no reason to panic even while the government will tackle the situation with great seriousness. She said that nothing works through the language of clampdown, crackdown and jackboots – “We must communicate with people with love and compassion and understand their worries and problems.”
She has said that the state lacks vaccines and she has written to the prime minister for more supply. She had earlier said that the vaccine supply to the state is “scarce and erratic”. She has written to the prime minister asking that the states should be given the power to buy vaccines from other sources without the permission of the Centre. There has apparently been no reply from Modi who has otherwise literally camped himself in Bengal for months, along with the Union home minister Amit Shah, and has been holding rallies despite the collective fears and warnings against mass gatherings becoming super-spreaders.
Mamata Banerjee insisted that the Centre and the EC refused to hold the elections in the last phase in one go considering the emergency situation arising out of the pandemic. “It would have been good for the people if elections had been done fast and in a short span,” she said. She said that “our political meetings have been made smaller, though I will not urge other parties to do the same – it is up to them”.