Democracy has its own functional perils, but at the time when the country is reeling under serious threats of an unprecedented global pandemic that has affected over 200 countries, 25 lakh people getting infected and 1.75 lakh people already dead due to COVID-19, some of the state governments in India are still involved in politicking compromising the safety of people of the state speaks volumes about politics in India. However, some state governments are wise enough to give precedence to life over politics like Kerala, Odisha and a few others.

The BJP-ruled states don’t have any other options but to follow the dictate of their central leadership but state governments like West Bengal are completely defying central government's orders even at the time of crisis. They are also not cooperating with the central government officials. The home ministry has sent a letter to the West Bengal government to allow interministerial teams to review the implementation of lockdown measures in the state.

Similar is the case with Delhi which is also handled equally bad by the Arvind Kejriwal government. Now, he has realized and said that Delhi has paid the price of Markaz incidence while his MLAs were not only supporting, giving clean chit but also instigating Tablighi Jamaat activists. Unable to understand the gravity of the situation and resulting negligence has spiked the cases of COVID-19 in the city to the second-highest in the country with 87 containment zones. Though the Delhi police are directly taking care of the containment zone but the number of containment zones is likely to go further with the city police working on data dump procured from the telecom operators to dig out people attending Markaz congregation.

The case of Maharashtra is a little different with virtually three bosses operating in the state. However, the CM has been able to tell his friends to project him as the best performing chief minister but now only he is exposed but people serving him as it has emerged as the numero uno state in COVID-19 cases. The CM is trying to strike a balance with his allies appear to save his chair from allies who have their own political agenda. The Maharashtra CM is also facing his survival not from the allies but constitution obligation as well.

Amid these rogue states, Kerala, Odisha, Telengana and Andhra Pradesh are some of the states that are trying their best to contain the disease and Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan has gone to the extent of saying that his government does not have any clash with the Centre on the issue of handling the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. Congress-ruled Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh too are not defying government measures to contain COVID-19, some political statements were made by the Congress leaders but that is their democratic right. It is the responsibility of the people to judge if anyone has crossed the limit.

But there is a need to understand that any lapse or laxity from any part of the country will put the entire country in danger, the country might be divided into states but the disease transcends it.

(By Vinod Kumar Shukla)