The rise in numbers of Covid cases across the country and in our own state is a cause of concern but politicians don’t seem to care. On Friday 42 new Covid cases were detected in the state. Huge gatherings at election rallies in Garo Hills where neither the VIPs not the people attending the rallies wore masks could become super spreaders. That political leaders have themselves let their guards down would make it very difficult for the Health Department to enforce Covid protocols one more time. In fact the Prime Minister and Home Minister of the country too have been criss-crossing states to garner votes. It almost looks as if they are immune to Covid. Not one leader exhorted people to remain wary of the second wave of Covid infections for that would have boomeranged on them and the people might have questioned as to why what’s good for the political class is not good for them. The next few weeks will reveal just how dangerous the huge election rallies are, when social distancing became a joke and was flouted with impunity. Covid cases and deaths have risen in the past few days. This calls for solid action plans, not a blame game where the Union health Minister is blaming the states; especially the non-BJP ruled states for failing to manage the Covid situation. Is this fair?
Coming to Meghalaya where all is set for the elections to the Garo Hills District Council scheduled for April 12, life is also set to return to normal in the sense that the Chief Minister will get back to his office and the CMO’s twitter handle will start buzzing. All these weeks the CM and his team of ministers have been touring Garo Hills like never before. What’s interesting is that all the parties in the coalition are going it alone in the Council elections. Health Minister AL Hek is campaigning for the BJP; the UDP bigwigs are campaigning for their own candidates. This makes the MDA coalition an opportunistic convergence of political parties whose ideologies differ and who are there just to form a government until the five-year tenure is done. By 2023 no one knows what the next coalition will look like and which new parties will make up the eclectic group. During the campaign for the GHADC elections each party spoke of its virtues and castigated the others for their faults. The corruption in the outgoing Council and non-payment of staff salaries was the reverberating theme. It would be interesting to see who forms the next Executive Council or if another coalition of disparate forces is in the offing. And when the elections are done and dusted perhaps the Covid protocols will also become more stringent!