Micromanaging is Mamata’s new mantra to mitigate COVID-19 crisis

West Bengal Chief minister Mamata Banerjee in a packed media briefing at Nabanna, the state secretariat, on Thursday (March 26) afternoon asked for a white board and pen to explain how people should maintain distance while queuing up to buy essentials to stave off Covid-19.

On the board, Banerjee, who never misses an opportunity to showcase her artistic skills — it is rumoured that a painting of her was bought by Sudipta Sen, the owner of chit-fund company Sarada group for ₹1.8 crore — drew a rectangular box and a few circles to graphically explain an ideal market scenario.

Not stopping at the drawing board, she also penned a song, never mind its literary worth, later in the evening to create public awareness about social distancing and motivate people to fight against the disease by cooperating with the government.

Didi, the omnipresent leader

A day earlier she was on the streets, covering her face with a flimsy white handkerchief, doing rounds of all the major government hospitals in Kolkata, including Beliaghata ID Hospital, where all the Covid-19 patients are being treated.

In the early days of the crisis, she even gave a demo on how to wash hands to avoid contacting the deadly virus.

She has this penchant for micromanaging every aspect of government and political functioning, be it dealing with the current corona crisis or leading her party’s charge, months earlier, against the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC). It’s her way of political positioning as a leader always at hand to lead the charge.

This time around too the chief minister, who also holds the health portfolio, through her presence in the frontline in the fight against the COVID-19, is trying to come across as a hands-on administrator and a humane leader, so deeply stirred by the crisis that she had to express her feeling through a verse.

Quick measures

More importantly for her, she appears to be winning the perception battle with even the opposition leaders in the recent all-party meeting lauding the steps taken by her government in the wake of the outbreak of coronavirus.

Creation of a ₹200-crore fund to tackle the health crisis; insurance coverage of ₹5 lakh each for the state’s 10 lakh government medical staff; free ration for the state’s over 7.5 crore ration card holders and a one-time grant of ₹1,000 to unorganised workers who are to be the worst affected by the lockdown are some of the measures taken by the government, which received wide appreciation.

It was again Banerjee who almost forced the central government to stop movement of inter-state train services and domestic flights. The state government shot a stern letter to the railway ministry asking it to stop trains from entering the state from midnight of March 22 until March 31. The chief minister herself wrote another letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging to immediately halt the flight services to prevent breach of quarantine protocol. The letters were also selectively released to the media for obvious reasons.

In a smart political move, she allowed the live telecast of her meeting with representatives of all political parties on Monday (March 23). In the meeting, leaders cutting across party lines hailed the government’s measures in front of the television cameras live streaming the proceedings into million houses across the state, giving her the political mileage.

She even cornered the BJP representatives to acknowledge that the Centre needed to support the state government financially to meet the challenge, almost in an endorsement of her charge that the Modi government is depriving the state of its due share.  The BJP later became a signatory to an all-party representation sent to the Union government seeking a special financial package for the state.

Stealing Centre’s thunder?

Much to the BJP’s chagrin, on Wednesday (March 25) she announced the constitution of a state emergency relief fund and urged people to contribute to it, once again accusing the Centre of not doing anything to help the state government at this time of colossal crisis.

To counter her, the BJP on the other hand instructed its party functionaries to launch a social media blitzkrieg, highlighting the measures taken by the central government to deal with the challenge to ensure that the state government could not take away all the credits.

A member of the BJP’s IT cell, which has now gone into work-from-home mode, said they had been also directed to expose the state government’s failures in their social media campaign. “But at the same time we have been strictly asked not to be seen in confrontation with the state government at this hour of crisis,” he said.

The BJP legislators and parliamentarians were further instructed to donate form their local area development fund for coronavirus treatment. The party’s Hooghly MP Locket Chatterjee contributed ₹1 crore while Jhargram MP Kunar Hembram donated ₹50 lakh for the purpose.

The CPI(M) and the Trinammol Congress, meanwhile, formed teams of volunteers to reach out to the geriatric population of the state, who are staying alone. If approached, the teams will deliver essentials to these elderly people.

“Our volunteers are visiting homes of the elderly residents to hand over their phone numbers so that the geriatric population can summon them to get whatever they need, at their doorstep. The service will be free. They will only have to pay the price of the goods,” said Pankaj Roy Sarkar, a senior CPI(M) leader from West Burdwan district.

TMC councilor Jui Biswas said similar help was also extended by the TMC. Biswas said, she personally gave her mobile number to all the senior citizens of her ward. They could place their requirement to her between 7 am to 9am, she added.