After Modi govt announces free vaccine for all, Mamata jumps in to take credit. And, this is not the first time

Mamata Banerjee said that the people of West Bengal would get free vaccines just a day after the Modi government already announced free vaccines for frontline workers. “I am happy to inform that our government is making arrangements for the vaccine to reach people of the state free of any charge,” CM Mamata Banerjee said.

Mamata Banerjee was trying to take credit for the free vaccination drive of the Modi government and this has irked many senior BJP leaders. BJP leader Dilip Ghosh said, “We have seen this before. Central schemes for housing or toilets are given another name by the state and passed off as its own. They will now try to do the same with the vaccine.”

BJP’s IT cell chief Amit Malviya has tweeted that Mamata Banerjee is rushing to take credit. “Pishi (Mamata Banerjee) was a disaster when it came to managing Covid. From doctors to policemen, everyone protested against Chief Minister’s apathy. But now that the centre has announced free priority vaccination for 3 crore frontline workers across the country, Pishi is rushing to take credit.”

Mamata Banerjee is known for putting her stamp over the central government schemes. She did not implement the PM-KISAN scheme in West Bengal just because the Modi government was transferring the money directly to the beneficiary’s account. Mamata Banerjee government argued that the Modi government should transfer money to the West Bengal government and then leave it to her administration on how to use the money. 

Mamata Banerjee government does not have enough money to work for the welfare of the people because she has destroyed the economy of the state further after more than three decades of destruction by the Communist governments.

Read More: Under Mamata’s rule in Bengal, even Bangladeshis are getting MNREGA payment 

Mamata Banerjee talks about the socio-economic welfare of the people but the harsh fact is that West Bengal has one of the worst taxes to GSDP ratio (the debt to GDP ratio) in the country.

However, the simple question is, if the state government does not have money, how will it spend on welfare schemes like health, education and PDS? On the other hand, the state is sitting on a huge pile of debt, which is accumulated primarily due to the previous Left Front government but Mamata Banerjee has also contributed to this in the last nine years.

On Health and Education indicators, the state has been one of the poorest performers in the last few decades. West Bengal was on eighth place in the list of Indian states by HDI and slipped to 28th in 2018– a massive 20 place decline under the rule of the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC. 

West Bengal is among the least industrialised states and fares much worse in every socio-economic indicator. The state used to have the highest per capita income at the time of independence, but now its place has slipped to the 19th place. This data alone is enough to tell us how badly the previous governments performed and how the trend even continued under Mamata Banerjee’s rule. At the time of independence, it produced a quarter of India’s GDP, and now it is on the sixth position, far behind Gujarat whose population is almost half that of West Bengal.

All that Mamata Banerjee government can do is to take credit for the welfare policies of the Modi government because she has no money to spend on welfare policies.