Kerala and Maharashtra, the two states which have failed to curb coronavirus crisis, are now being helped by the Union government for their incompetencies in dealing with the pandemic. The Union Health Ministry has appointed a high-level multi-disciplinary team to help Maharashtra and Kerala- the two states that are reporting the majority of India’s cases.
“Kerala and Maharashtra continue to report large number of cases. At present, these two states alone are contributing to almost 70 per cent of all active COVID-19 cases in the country,” said the Union government in a statement.
In the last few days, India has consistently reported less than 10,000 cases of coronavirus per day, which is the lowest since the last nine months. Out of these 10,000 cases, more than 4,000 are being reported in Kerala and around 3,000 in Maharashtra – the two of the worst-performing states in the handling the pandemic.
The team deputed by the centre comprises of doctors from the top hospitals of Delhi who played a key role in boosting India’s coronavirus response. “The Central team to Maharashtra comprises of experts drawn from National Center for Disease Control (NCDC) and Dr. RML Hospital, New Delhi. The Kerala team shall comprise of senior official from Ministry of Health & Family Welfare along with experts from Regional Office of Health & Family Welfare, Thiruvananthapuram and Lady Hardinge Medical College, New Delhi,” says the press release of the Union government.
A few months ago, Kerala was being hailed as a role model for the world on how to deal with the virus and Kerala’s Communist Health Minister was seen lecturing the left-liberal newspapers on how she dealt with the situation. However, the Public Relations gimmick failed badly when the state started reporting the highest number of cases of coronavirus in the country despite having a very small percentage of the nation’s population.
Kerala has a population of less than 3.5 crores and the state reported around 3,500 cases of coronavirus on Monday while Uttar Pradesh, a state with a population of more than 22 crores, reported only 247 cases. For decades, Kerala represented itself as a model for development in the developing societies, and the left-liberal establishment repeatedly perpetuated that model. However, that model stands exposed amid the failure of the Communist government and deployment of Union government teams.
Similarly, Maharashtra, one of the richest states in the country, has emerged as a sad story, thanks to the incompetent and ineffective leadership skills of Uddhav Thackeray. The state, which accounts for around 9 per cent of the country’s population, accounts for more than 25 per cent of total cases of coronavirus.
Although Kerala succeeded in curbing the virus in the initial stage and that was the reason why KK Shailaja went on a PR tour, Maharashtra was an example of failure right from the start. From the very initial phases of the outbreak, Maharashtra continued to record the highest number of positive cases of coronavirus as well as the deaths. Uddhav Thackeray, who never had a ministerial post and even never won a municipal election, was installed on CM chair a few months before the outbreak, and his inexperience with administration and leadership was visible throughout the pandemic.
In the last few weeks, the intellectual cheerleaders of the Kerala model have fallen completely silent and the Lutyens media that went gaga over the so-called model is nowhere to be seen. The Chief Minister and his star Health Minister Shailaja Teacher, who even received an award from the UN for tackling the coronavirus cases has refused to take the blame for the spurt in the cases.
The Union government deputing a team of top doctors from Delhi to deal with the coronavirus crisis in Kerala and Maharashtra thus proves the incompetencies of the Pinarayi Vijayan and Uddhav Thackeray governments.