Ministers who shunned their Covid responsibilities have been shown the door by PM Modi

Modi government’s second tenure had to tackle the devastating second wave of coronavirus. Leaders all across the political spectrum are trying to deal with this pandemic situation, and they have tried their best to ensure that the help reaches the needy and the losses could be minimised.

However, except a few, none of the union ministers has stepped in to counter fake news and propaganda of the opposition, which sends a wrong message to the masses regarding the image or perception of the ruling party.

Prime Minister Modi along with union ministers like Nitin Gadkari, S Jaishankar, Piyush Goyal, Rajnath Singh, and Nirmala Sitharaman have tried their best to keep their ministries running and improve the situation. Even Dr Harsh Vardhan, although not too efficiently, but is trying his best to help India tackle the coronavirus crisis and the rising misinformation against it.

Senior BJP leader and MP from Patna Sahib Ravi Shankar Prasad’s absence during the Corona period angered the masses who supported him. In the second wave of Covid, maximum number of people were infected and maximum deaths were recorded in Bihar. Yet he had not done much to control the situation. This led to his exit from the new cabinet.

Modi government has 54 ministers, out of which counted numbers could be visible working to combat the deadly virus. The rest of the ministers, neither are publicly seen nor are active on any social media platform creating awareness or any other kind of contribution. Moreover, they failed to counter the fake narrative of the opposition, instead, some of the ministers are only hurting the cause of the Modi government with their stupid statements. As extensively reported by TFI, Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers, DV Sadananda Gowda, while speaking to reporters in Bengaluru said, “The court has with good intention said everyone in the country should get vaccinated. I want to ask you, if the court says tomorrow that you have to give this much (of vaccine), if it has not been produced yet, should we hang ourselves?” He added, “Practically, certain things are beyond our control, can we manage them?” This kind of controversial remarks and inefficiency led to his resignation from the Union Cabinet.

Modi government is being targeted by the opposition by spreading various kinds of fake news on vaccine export and complacency on the part of the government but only a few union ministers have come forward to counter these claims.

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Despite public health being a state subject, the central government has been the key actor in designing health policies and programmes. State governments cannot run away from their responsibilities and are squarely to blame for the lack of preparation. The Covid-19 outbreak has revealed how over-dependent states are on the central government for technical expertise and financial support.

In this hour of need of the hour, ministers should put all the resources together and utilise them in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic rather than escaping the situation. As representatives of the people, union ministers also had the responsibility to remain alert during the pandemic. All these reasons summed up the legendary decision of the Modi government to rejig and create a new and efficient council of ministers, which led to the exit of a considerable number of Union ministers.