The endeavours of the State government to contain the threat of COVID-19 have increasingly drawn criticism from the United Democratic Front and the Bharatiya Janata Party. The CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front government, on its part, is on a counter-offensive, dismissing the criticism as the Opposition’s attempts at reaping political mileage.
There has been no let-up in the sparring ever since the government engaged a U.S.-based company to collate the data of COVID-19 patients. Even the complications involved in the return of Non-Resident Keralites to the State and a medical board’s decision to send a group of Congress MPs and MLAs to quarantine are all fodder for the squabble. In response to the latter issue, the Youth Congress has demanded that Minister for Local Self-Governments A.C. Moideen too be placed in quarantine. Lost amid these wordy duels are the accolades won by the State government globally for its virus containment initiatives and the alarming surge in cases among health workers and police personnel.
The plight of Keralites striving to return from other States too have taken a political hue, with the curbs on their entry and the decision to regulate their flow being portrayed as an attempt to keep them at bay.
In tandem
Sinking political differences, the Centre and the State had been working in tandem initially to manage the crisis, but the recent observations of a few BJP leaders and retorts by the CPI(M) have raised doubts about the durability of such a co-existence.
With the local body elections round the corner and the Assembly elections set to follow, all parties, especially the Opposition, can ill-afford to keep politics at bay.
