Coronavirus had taken the shape of a major disaster in China after the virus virtually spread across the entire country during the Lunar New Year celebrations on January 25 when mass scale travels took place in China after which Coronavirus has been spread to nearly every part of the country and also Hong Kong.
It seems that India’s Lunar New Year celebrations moment is here as a monumental blunder has been committed by the Kejriwal government in Delhi. Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal has done all the good work against Coronavirus to dust even as he pushed a huge crowd of migrant labourers to the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border.
Images from Delhi’s Anand Vihar Interstate Bus Terminal (ISBT) show thousands of migrants huddled together waiting for buses from UP that would ferry them towards their hometowns.
Delhi: Migrant workers in very large numbers at Delhi's Anand Vihar bus terminal, to board buses to their respective home towns and villages. They have walked to the bus terminal on foot from different parts of the city. pic.twitter.com/IeToP3hX7H
— ANI (@ANI) March 28, 2020
The images of a stampede-like situation at the Anand Vihar ISBT is terrifying as even one infected person in this crowd could trigger a huge disaster insofar the spread of Coronavirus is concerned and it seems highly probably that Delhi CM Kejriwal has diverted a major disaster towards Uttar Pradesh.
For all we know, the Delhi government seems to have pushed every single of those migrants into a virtual death-knell. And when they reach home, the state of Uttar Pradesh too awaits a major disaster as entire villages and towns could get infected with the novel Wuhan virus, if even one person in these crowds was carrying COVID-19.
This however is not just monumental mismanagement by the Delhi government, but an organised disaster. A statement by the Uttar Pradesh government has accused the Kejriwal government of disconnecting water and electricity supply to the migrants. It added, “During lockdown, people were not even provided food and milk in Delhi.”
https://twitter.com/TrulyMonica/status/1244120501447872513?s=20
The Uttar Pradesh government has also stated that DTC buses were used to drop off the migrants to Delhi border. What further reveals disgusting politics on the part of Delhi government, these destitute workers were misled with announcements and rumours that there were buses waiting at the Delhi border to drop them to their hometowns in the neighbouring state of Uttar Pradesh.
Thus, Kejriwal treated poor migrants from Uttar Pradesh with utter disdain and decided to throw them out in the midst of a deadly crisis. This is clearly an organised disaster as the Kejriwal government put up a pathetic show coming out completely listless at a time of crisis. It was as if the authorities were waiting for this to happen.
The Noida District Magistrate waived off the rent for the ongoing month in view of the ongoing lockdown so that migrant labourers didn’t have to worry about losing their accommodation, but no such order was passed in Delhi. Why?
And even if the Kejriwal government decided to surreptitiously throw migrant labourers out of Delhi making full use of the Coronavirus outbreak to achieve its nefarious ends, why organise an apocalypse in order to achieve such inhuman objects, when the situation could have been managed far more smoothly?
Currently, the DTC is working at 25 per cent capacity, and thus around 2,800 buses of the 3,781-strong fleet are inoperative. But the destitute workers were made to wait for 1,000 buses organised at a short notice by the Uttar Pradesh government.
These buses could have easily ferried 84,000 people to their hometowns in a single trip even if a conservative measure of each bus carrying 30 people at a time is taken. And then there were a plethora of private buses that are not working amidst the lockdown, why did the Kejriwal government not hire them? Then there were no requests made to the Haryana Roadways to cater to this exigency.
The mobilisation of crowds is itself an example of the incompetence of the worst kind. There are three major bus stands in Delhi catering to different routes and states, and Anand Vihar ISBT caters to majority of Uttar Pradesh but when all other ISBTs are shut down due to the ongoing lockdown, then why were the migrant labourers compelled to crowd in a particular area?
Why were the other two bus stands not made functional for the time being to ensure that the poor labourers going towards Uttar Pradesh could conveniently board buses from different pickup points.
With a show of sheer incompetence and administrative inefficiency, Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal has created a major disaster in waiting for Uttar Pradesh, as the latter will have to carry out screening, testing and isolation of the incoming migrants in large numbers at a war-footing.
In all probability, a disaster has been manufactured to pave way for political mudslinging, something that has already kicked off with Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia trying to shed responsibility instead of owning up to the disaster that the Delhi government has manufactured.