It is unfortunate that even a humanitarian crisis of such massive proportions cannot unite the Centre and the State governments. It is almost as if there is a race to shift the blame on the other and escape the responsibility. After AAP spokesman Raghav Chadha’s incessant attacks on the Central government over the oxygen crisis in Delhi during a debate on Aaj Tak, BJP’s Gaurav Bhatia hit back as he listed down how the Centre has moved heaven and earth to arrange for oxygen in the national capital as Delhites scramble from one place to another in search of oxygen.
One would expect the Centre and Delhi government to have seamless coordination at least during a humanitarian crisis of such proportion but that is not the case. After Raghav Chadha hit out at the Modi government over its handling of the oxygen crisis during a debate on Aaj Tak, BJP’s Gaurav Bhatia hit back at him and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi as he said, “Our initiative, the Oxygen Express, has transported 1125 metric tonnes of oxygen.More such oxygen express will be transported to oxygen in many states including Delhi. It is saddening to see when the state governments politicise the issue.”
He added, “Oxygen is not released into the air. Health is the subject of the state. The Delhi and Rajasthan government have been reprimanded. They did not have tanks. We provided all the tanks that we had. Delhi has been given 25 large oxygen cylinders. She is rightly saying that people don’t care about what caused negligence. People are only concerned about the lives of their relatives.”
In the six-odd years of Kejriwal and his AAP government’s existence, everyone knows that the Delhi CM lacks administrative skillset and only knows how to play the blame game and nothing else. However, even the Centre now must own up full responsibility for Delhi especially after its recent notification which designated Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal for managing the COVID situation in Delhi. There should be no excuses now.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar made an important statement at the Global Dialogue Series where he said, “If somebody is sick, if somebody is looking for oxygen, if somebody is looking for Remdesivir, they are not going to listen to policy explanation. They want to see practical answers on the ground.” As India reports over 4,12,000 cases of the Wuhan coronavirus in the past 24 hours, it is safe to say that hardly anything has moved on the ground. The Centre isn’t solely responsible for the oxygen crisis and negligence on the part of the states must be taken note of. Both the Central and state governments should step up and work in coordination to help the national capital recover from the crisis it is bogged in currently.