Stop playing politics over the pandemic

Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya has rightly asked Rahul Gandhi to suspend his 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' for the time being in view of the mounting concerns over a fresh wave of COVID-19 in some parts of the world. China, after easing some norms of the COVID-19 protocol, in the face of a near revolt by the public is gearing up to a massive fallout of its decision. World over, governments are gearing up to take the impact of a fresh bout.

Let us be honest, COVID-19 has not really gone away. Either people got used to the milder forms of it or the governments started ignoring the same in the interests of their economies. And one should pay the price for lowering the guard sooner or later. But, neither the Congress party nor its leaders are amenable to reason. The reaction of the Congress to the suggestion of the Union Minister that the yatris should either take precautions or abstain from their yatra, for the time being, has not gone down well with it. Illogically, as it does happen often, it questioned the Centre whether the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, followed any protocols during his Gujarat campaign. The Assembly elections are done and dusted.

Why should the government fear the 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' which is progressing on the expected lines uneventfully? If any, Rahul has only succeeded in making the party lose miserably in Gujarat and completely decimated in Delhi. In Rajasthan, he has preferred hardening the differences between the supporters of the Chief Minister, Ashok Gehlot and his deputy Sachin Pilot. Anyway, Rahul and his family enterprise, the Congress, have a bigger worry than COGID-19 on hands. Though an infected Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister of the Congress hugs Rahul Gandhi, it is alright for the party.

Concerns about the pandemic are on the rise throughout the world now and experts have warned that China would face a few million deaths. No one is sure of the party and its leader's capacity to 'jodo' the country because of their irrelevance to the voters, but sure they could, the countrymen with the virus. It is the wrong time to play politics. Certainly not with the pandemic. Congress would only blame the BJP if people in the yatra later spread the virus having contracted the same through the 'crowd response' which is very high according to the party. So, it is a convenient yatra for the party even at the cost it could impose on the country later. The Centre has already held a high-level meeting over the threat and is mulling an early action plan to avoid a repeat of the 2019-20 situation.

These are hard times for the economy and no one should deliberately create hurdles in its recovery. Ranging from authoritarianism in China to single-party socialism in Vietnam, to representative democracy in New Zealand, successful efforts to thwart the pandemic's spread seem to rely less on politics, and more on national cooperation. If Congress prefers politics over the pandemic, let us leave it to its wisdom (if anything is still left in it). It is time the government wakes up to the threat to put in place the right protocols.