COVID-19 scare treads a political way in Bihar
New Delhi: The Coronavirus scare in Bihar seems to be treading a political way in the election year in the state. The chunk between the Nitish Kumar-led JD(U)-BJP combine NDA government has dented the image of Sushasan Babu who is facing brickbats from all around the corner for not handling the pandemic-led issues including that of migrants.
With the fresh directives of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) coming as a major relief for migrants and students to get back to their home states, BJP has taken the lead in Bihar and has tasked volunteers to coordinate with states in bringing back home its people.
Since the recent developments have compelled state BJP leadership to work in "self-isolation" mode, the party insiders stated that there was no specific "role" of BJP ministers in the decision-making process of the government to contain the spread of COVID-19 in the Bihar, which has reported over 380 positive cases as of now.
"All the key ministers of the party such as Deputy CM cum Finance Minister Sushil Modi, Health Minister Mangal Pandey, Road Minister Nand Kishore Yadav and Agriculture Minister Prem Kumar do take part in Cabinet meetings, but they have a very restricted role in policy finalisation," the party insider said.
Surprisingly, as per the party leader, in most of the crucial meetings, excluding Cabinet meets, BJP ministers are not even "allowed" to attend.
"Since over one crore people, including stranded students, migrants workers and protesting teachers have been badly hit in the ongoing nationwide lockdown, the BJP state unit president Sanjay Jaiswal has tasked key ministers to get in touch with all-party workers at the Mandal level either through conference-call or video-calling and reach out to aggrieved families facing lockdown hardships," the party insiders said.
The BJP ministers are interacting with party members deep down at the organisation level from the last one-month on a regular basis, while the party's state president has a fixed schedule of video-conferencing with all districts heads daily.
"The issues that have put BJP in Catch-22 position among its cadre include FIR against Bajrang Dal activists for planting the saffron flag on shops in Nalanda district, no 'concrete' action in the Patna City's Sunny Gupta murder case, issuance of a letter by Sheohar district administration granting 'relaxation' during ongoing Ramadan, etc," the party leader said, adding that BJP followed the lockdown measures and didn't take out any procession during Ram Navami. However, the move to put the ball in Prime Minister's court in the matter of bringing back Kota students has also irked BJP leaders a lot.
