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BJP workers told to scale up Covid relief, efforts on flood in Bihar

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By
Jul 29, 2020 07:31 AM IST

The elections are crucial for the BJP, which is in alliance with the Janata Dal United (JDU) in Bihar, since it lost power in Maharashtra and Jharkhand last year.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has asked its functionaries in poll-bound Bihar to redouble efforts to offer relief to Covid-19 and flood-hit people as the party has begun preparations for the assembly elections in the country’s third most populous state, people aware of the matter said.

The elections are crucial for the BJP, which is in alliance with the Janata Dal United (JDU) in Bihar, since it lost power in Maharashtra and Jharkhand last year. They are due later this year as the state needs to have a new assembly in place before November 26.

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The elections in the flood-hit state would be the first since the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted lives and triggered an exodus of migrant workers to their home states including Bihar.

The BJP has also carried out a survey among the migrant workforce forced to return to the state after the lockdown imposed to check the pandemic left them jobless. The survey assessed the response to the aid offered by the state government. “Between July 1 and 10, a survey was conducted across districts to find out the response of the workers and there were no complaints,” said a person aware of the details.

The BJP lost the last assembly elections in the state when JDU formed the government with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Congress. JDU returned to BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA)’s fold in Bihar in 2017.

The BJP suffered electoral setbacks after retaining power at the Centre with a bigger majority in 2019. It was unable to form the government in Maharashtra despite emerging as the single largest party following disagreements with its oldest ally, Shiv Sena, over power-sharing. In Haryana too, it could form the government only after Jannayak Janata Party’s support. The BJP was voted out of power in Jharkhand in December 2019.

At a recent meeting between state BJP and national leadership, the issue of reaching out to people with aid was underlined, said the people.

Leaders of both the BJP and JDU maintain their response to the pandemic has been adequate even as it has had a severe impact on the economy and jobs. They insist it will not have any adverse impact on the electoral outcome.

But the BJP is looking at ways to mitigate public anger. In recent weeks, there has been a spurt in the number of Covid-19 cases in the state. On Sunday, the state’s count stood at 234 deaths and 36,604 active cases. Floods have also hit tens of thousands of people.

“There were some complaints of medical negligence in some hospitals, but the government has stepped up efforts. State unit president Sanjay Jaiswal, who was himself infected with the virus recently, took the lead and went for inspections to hospitals to ensure proper treatment for all,” said the person quoted above.

A second functionary said BJP chief JP Nadda interacted with the state unit functionaries this week and instructed them to scale up relief measures and ensure people in the flood-affected area are not left without food, shelter, and medical care.

“Since the outbreak of the pandemic, we were distributing food parcels and other essentials but with the flooding now in several areas of the state, we will scale up our efforts,” said the functionary, requesting anonymity.

Jaiswal rejected allegations that the state’s medical infrastructure is crumbling. “We have ensured that there are medical supplies such as oxygen concentrators and other equipment at all hospitals at the sub-division level. This has also helped ease the burden on AIIMS [All India Institute of Medical Sciences] and a few other hospitals. Medical colleges have also been equipped to handle the patient load and monitoring of the situation is being done on a real-time basis,” he said.

Opposition RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav has attacked the BJP and JDU for being preoccupied with poll preparations. He has said chief minister Nitish Kumar is wary of the President’s Rule if elections are not held as per schedule.

BJP spokesman Shahnawaz Hussain rejected the opposition’s criticism as baseless and added the party or the government have no role in deciding the election schedule.

Milind Awad, a professor at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, said the Bihar poll will be focused on Prime Minister Narendra Modi rather than NDA or Nitish Kumar. “It is important to understand that it is for the first time when most of the Bihari working class is home due to pandemic... [under] this situation, failure in handling workers crisis may have a negative impact on the NDA alliance. Also, it is important to understand the dominant agrarian castes sentiment about [RJD leader] Lalu Prasad Yadav; he is in jail. This fact may create insecurity and agony among OBC [other backward class] and most of the lower caste, which may... damage NDA.”

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