Corona virus sees no religion; it is neither casteist, sexist or regional supremacist. One that the global virus has proved is that it makes no difference who you are. It doesn’t spare if one is a Hollywood celebrity, sporting star or a religious leader, a priest or a politician. It has no concern for economy or stock markets. Well, it shows no respect to royalty, even if the person in question is Britian’s mighty Queen Elizabeth II or the world’s most powerful man Donald Trump. The pandemic shows no mercy – Prince or pauper.
Senior Iranian politician Hossein Sheikholeslam has died of the coronavirus, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau’s wife Sophie Grégoire Trudeau was tested positive. The list seems long: Hollywood’s most celebrated couple Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson, Italian politician Nicola Zingaretti, Chelsea winger Callum Hudson-Odoi, Spanish head coach Mikel Artera, Utah Jazz NBA player Rudy Gobert has confirmed he has Covid-19. The virus pandemic has chased 93-year-old Queen Elizabeth II and 98-year-old Prince Phillip from Buckingham Palace. International pop stars Justin Bieber, Mariah Carey, Lady Gaga are taking no chances.
The Novel Coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, is wreaking havoc across the world and had been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and stressed international cooperation to contain the rapidly spreading virus. The Coronavirus has also had a debilitating effect on the global economy. Global supply chains are breaking down; countries are restricting travel, thousands of people are quarantined. Spain announced a nationwide lockdown as France moved to close all nonessential businesses — including cafes, restaurants and movie theaters. Worldwide infections have grown to more than 140,000 in over 120 countries, according to some estimates.
And yet YSRCP president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister still doesn’t see the virus as a serious threat. He thinks he is invincible and lives in a La La Land thinking AP is insulated from the most dreaded virus. The YSRCP supremo appears to be more concerned with a political narrative than the public health threat.
Corona virus doesn’t dabble in politics, but politicians are busy politicising the pandemic. Corona has no clue of what politicians think of it or doesn’t care if the leaders or electorate are worried. As the civic body elections progressed into unknown territory, Jagan Mohan Reddy has indulged in the politics of pandemic even as the seriousness of the pandemic still being debated across the world.
“There is no need to press panic button. It is not such a big threat as it is being made out to be,” Jagan Mohan Reddy said at a hurriedly held press conference minutes after the state election commission had postponed the civic body elections by six weeks. Well, how much it worries one depends heavily on personal politics.
As the world slipped into deepening uncertainty over a spreading virus and growing anxiety over its effect on the global economy, Jagan showed symptoms of cold, chills and fever not triggered by Corona virus rather the elections. Jagan turned cold on the opposition seemingly worried about the polls. His logic: If the elections are postponed, the state government will lose Rs 5,000 crore central funds. How are the central funds linked to the elections? That Jagan did not explain nor did the mainstream media bother to question his logic. Further, Corona is not casteist, but Jagan thinks the elections were postponed by state election commissioner Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar, a Kamma, biased towards the Telugu Desam Party’s Chandrababu Naidu, a Kamma. “The former chief minister Chandrababu Naidu appointed Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar as SEC because both of them belong to the same social group.” This is the kind of classic casetist aspersions that one always gets to hear during the elections where the voters are more often than not divided whether the contesting candidate is a Reddy or a Kamma or a Kapu. But here Jagan, a product of the Hyderabad Public School, casting aspersions on the state election commissioner was rather sad. For the uninitiated, the Hyderabad Public School has produced illustrious sons of the soil like Satya Nadella (Microsoft CEO), Shantanu Narayen (Adobe CEO), Ajay Banga (Mastercard CEO), Karan Billimoria (Cobra beer founder, life peer of UK’s Parliament) and several others.
While his Telangana counterpart K Chandrasekhara Rao asked the schools, cinema halls and malls to shut down till March 31, Jagan was busy in dabbling in politics over corona instead of announcing concrete measures to contain and tackle in the event of an outbreak of the virus in Andhra Pradesh. What best electoral practices did Jagan announce to safeguard the electorate in AP if the elections were to be held as scheduled?
Jagan, who proposed three capitals for AP citing the South African example, should have also looked at the disaster-readiness of other countries during the elections instead of sharpening his criticism against the opposition and casting casteist aspersions on SEC. Jagan, as a CM, should have known that the election commission might require to invoke the doctrine of necessity to postpone the elections that may be due constitutionally during the period of national crisis caused by natural disasters, epidemic, pandemic or conflicts.
The September 11, 2001 terror attacks that destroyed the Twin Towers in New York City and killed thousands of innocent people, occurred the same day as the New York Democratic and Republican primary elections. Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Hurricane Sandy in New Jersey and New York, and Hurricane Matthew in the southeastern United States have occurred shortly before or during elections, in some cases severely disrupting them. When Superstorm Sandy hit the East Coast just days before the 2012 presidential elections, there were serious debates on the postponement of polls. Some states even evolved laws authorising the suspension, delay or postponement of an election in an emergency situation. Hurricane Sandy also served as a wake-up call for the importance of contingency planning with regard to relocation of polling places, power outages, equipment, poll worker and ballot shortages. The United States is still debating on postponement of is presidential primary because of the coronavirus outbreak with Louisiana becoming the first state, Georgia the second state to put off its presidential primary while several other are weighing various delays or mail-in balloting measures to protect the public from exposure to the illness.
Similar debates were held in India too. For instance, there was a debate to postpone the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly elections for six months as voters were affected by flood and drought.
It is not just about whether to conduct elections during natural disasters. It is also about contingency plans during such events. What measures did the Andhra Pradesh government initiate to protect older people, the demographic most at risk for having serious complications from the virus? It’s not just the electorate, however, who are at risk. Poll workers too could be exposed to the risks of the deadly infection. Providing hand sanitizers at the polls, and sanitizing voting machines and other equipment could have been some of the measures that Jagan should have thought of, but instead he was busy resorting to unscientific statements that the corona virus is not a threat. This doesn’t bode well for the head of the state.
Further, the Modi government had advised state authorities to take measures to avoid mass gatherings in an attempt to contain the spread of COVID-19. Are elections conducted in isolation? Obviously, a large number of voters turn out at the polling booths, aren’t they mass gatherings? Isn’t the safety of every citizen paramount, Mr Jagan?
