Why The Trinamool And Bengal Government Are Wrong In Opposing Visit Of Central Team To State

Bengal’s ruling party and its government have been strongly opposing the visit of the two Inter-Ministerial Central Teams (IMCTs) constituted by the Union Government to look into the coronavirus pandemic situation in the state.

Ever since the two teams--one for north Bengal and the other for south Bengal--landed in the state, the state government and the Trinamool have been speaking out against them, terming New Delhi’s action as “unilateral” and “violative of federalism”.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee set the ball rolling by tweeting Monday afternoon, soon after the teams arrived, that she would not facilitate their visit (read this).

She then wrote to Prime Minister Modi complaining that Union Home Minister Amit Shah informed her about the teams’ visit three hours after they arrived in the state.

The two teams were barred from visiting markets, hospitals and other areas, and from interacting with people, for the better part of Tuesday.

The two teams complained to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), prompting Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla to read the riot act to Bengal (read this).

Bhalla sent a strongly worded letter to the state chief secretary Rajiva Sinha reminding him of the provisions of the Disaster Management Act, 2005, that made it incumbent on states to follow directives of the Union Government.

The letter also reminded the chief secretary of the Supreme Court order of 31 March, 2020, asking states to comply with Centre’s directives to fight the pandemic.

That the state government was seemingly unaware of the provisions of the 2005 Act, spoke very poorly of the top officials of Bengal who ought to have guided the political executive properly.

A chastened chief secretary, who a day earlier had spoken more like a Trinamool spokesperson and declared the two teams won’t be allowed to go around the state, had to eat humble pie and meekly go to the BSF guest house where the IMCT for south Bengal had put up. The team then went around some parts of Kolkata.

The Trinamool and the Bengal government's opposition to the visit of the IMCTs is founded on two premises. And both are completely faulty.

The first is that the state government ought to have been consulted by the Union Government before constituting the team and sending it to Bengal. By not doing so, contended Bengal and its ruling party, New Delhi violated the federal spirit and structure of the Constitution.

The reason why this premise is wrong is that the IMCT was not meant to go on a guided tour of the state.

The teams were constituted and asked to undertake visits to assess the ground realities with regard to lockdown violations, non-adherence to WHO and ICMR guidelines regarding safety of frontline healthcare workers, flouting of those guidelines in testing and in the protocol of treating patients with symptoms of Covid-19 infection as well as those who had tested positive.

There is no way that the teams would have been able to do all this had the state been given adequate time to take corrective action or get into a window-dressing to hide stark ground realities.

There is no way the teams would have been able to get the true picture of the pandemic situation prevailing in Bengal had they been placed under the care of the Bengal government which would have then taken them on a guided tour of select areas and arranged interviews with tutored healthcare professionals and others.

And that is why, instead of relying on the Bengal Police--a force that distinguishes itself with its abject kowtowing to its political masters--for security, the two teams preferred central forces (the BSF and SSB) for the job. The state police would surely have led the two teams up the garden path.

The second premise for opposing the visit is also gravely flawed.

Trinamool spokesperson Derek O’Brien, while terming the visit of the two teams as adventure tourism, wondered why similar teams had not been sent to the BJP- or NDA-ruled states of Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh where the numbers of Covid-19 infected patients was much higher.

What the Trinamool spokesperson could not fathom was that the IMCTs were not constituted to visit states based on their Covid-infected count.

The teams were being sent to study ground realities: violations of lockdown restrictions and social distancing norms, flouting WHO and ICMR protocols on testing, handling, segregating and treating symptomatic and positive patients, inadequate safety measures for healthcare workers and condition of quarantine facilities.

Since the beginning of this month, there have been many complaints, allegations and evidence of all such violations and the dismal preparedness of the state in combating the pandemic.

The IMCTs were sent to study and assess these violations and report to the Union Government, which would then send advisories to the states (Bengal, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh) where the maximum number of violations had been reported from.

There is no denying the fact that Bengal has been completely lax in enforcing lockdown restrictions and social distancing norms, in testing, in providing PPEs to healthcare workers, in ensuring proper segregation and treatment of symptomatic patients, in providing proper facilities at quarantine centres and in containing transmission of the virus.

To oppose the visit of the IMCTs that will ultimately result in the Union Government suggesting concrete remedial measures and providing resources for the same smacks of utter foolhardiness and myopia.