Telangana, Karnataka Opposition Use AP’s Measures to Prove COVID Mishandling in Own States

Vijayawada: In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in India, Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy was trolled for his prescription of paracetamol and bleaching powder as weapons to fight the virus.

Lately, however, the measures Jagan has introduced to manage the novel coronavirus have given opposition parties in Telangana and Karnataka a sturdy stick with which to beat their state chief ministers, as the people of these two states complain that their respective governments have failed to contain the pandemic.

Karnataka: Politics over pandemic

Siddaramaiah, former chief minister of Karnataka from the Congress party, recently praised Jagan on Twitter, comparing the AP chief minister’s measures to those of his own state.

“Chief minister Jaganmohan Reddy has launched over 1,000 ambulance service equipped with ultra modern medical equipment in Andhra Pradesh at a cost of Rs 200 crore. We are dying on the street without an ambulance,” Siddaramaiah tweeted.

Siddaramaiah alleged that while the Jagan government has offered Rs 2,000 to every COVID-19 patient who recovers, the Yediyurappa government in Karnataka has requested COVID-19 patients who have recovered to donate their plasma in return for Rs 5,000. “It is unfair for any government to do plasma business in the time of corona,” he said.

The Wire tried to contact Karnataka’s medical education minister, K. Sudhakar, for a confirmation of Siddaramaiah’s allegation, but could not reach him.

Siddaramaiah also alleged that the state government had perpetrated a scam of Rs 2,000 crore in the purchase of equipment to deal with the pandemic.

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According to the Bruhath Bengalore Mahanagara Palika bulletin, Karnataka had conducted 2,47,000 COVID-19 tests by July 19. There were 31,777 COVID-positive cases and 668 deaths. Bengaluru, with a population of 1.23 crore, accounted for half the cases reported in the state.

Discontent within the state BJP seems to preoccupy 78-year-old Yediyurappa more than the pandemic does. Yediyurappa has been dealing with an internal rebellion led by seniors in his party who were denied cabinet berths after he became Karnataka’s chief minister for the record fourth time on July 26, 2019, by toppling the Congress-JD(S)-led coalition government. He has also had to placate 22 rebel lawmakers who defected to the BJP from the Congress and the JD(S).

Recent reports suggest that the BJP top brass will be pushing for a change of guard in Karnataka.

The rift between medical education minister K. Sudhakar and health minister B. Sriramulu embarrassed Yediyurappa so much that he was forced to make education minister S. Suresh Kumar responsible for pandemic management.

Telangana: Rumours abound

Meanwhile, Uttam Kumar Reddy, the Telangana State Pradesh Congress Committee president, asked Telangana chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao to learn from the measures taken by AP’s government.

At a virtual ‘Speak Up Telangana’ interactive session with the party’s rank and file on July 18, the Congress leader said Andhra Pradesh included COVID-19 treatment under the Arogyasri Health Scheme, enabling free treatment to patients of the virus. AP also gives relatives of those who die of the virus Rs 15,000 towards funeral expenses, he added. Testing is on the rise in AP and free coronavirus kits containing face masks, gloves, sanitisers and pulse oximeters are provided to patients quarantining at home.

With this example, the Congress in Telangana called for a movement to demand the inclusion of COVID-19 treatment in the Telangana Arogyasri Health Scheme.

In the absence of aid from the government, COVID-19 patients in Telangana are being fleeced by private hospitals, tweeted Parakala Prabhakar, political economist and former communications advisor to the Andhra Pradesh chief minister. Prabhakar claimed in his tweet that a COVID-19 patient was charged Rs 9.5 lakh for 10 days in a private hospital, underlining the need for tariff controls across all hospitals.

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Government hospitals in Telangana have reportedly run short of beds, ventilators and oxygen cylinders. Congress MLA T. Jagga Reddy said he failed to get a bed for a COVID-19 patient in the district headquarters hospital at Sangareddy and the patient subsequently succumbed to the virus.

The recent strike between July 14 and 19 by outsourced health workers, including sanitation workers, nurses and security guards, at Hyderabad’s Gandhi Hospital and Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) to demand the regularisation of services has also been added to the list of complaints made by the BJP and the Congress in Telangana.

The two opposition parties have said that the government limits its tests to show a low rate of COVID positivity in the state. Recently, responding to a public interest litigation, the Telangana High Court directed the government to ensure transparency in the testing and treatment of infected patients.

On July 20, according to a state government bulletin, Andhra Pradesh intensified its testing, screening 13,15,532 people. The number of positive cases stood at 49,650, while 642 deaths were reported. Telangana conducted 2.37 lakh tests of which 46,274 were positive cases. The number of fatal cases stood at 422.

More than 50% of Telangana’s cases are in Hyderabad, which has a population of about 1 crore. Rumours allege that the state government has instructed hospital superintendents to not take samples from patients who died of the COVID-19 virus to keep the number of virus-caused fatalities low.

Vinod Boyinapalli, vice chairman of the Telangana Planning Board, told The Wire that it is unfair to compare Telangana, with its densely populated big cities, with Andhra Pradesh, which has a largely rural demographic profile. He pointed out that Hyderabad accounts for nearly one third of Telangana’s 3.5 crore population and the state also has cities such as Warangal, Karimnagar and Nizamabad. Handling the pandemic in thickly populated cities is a big challenge for any government, he said.

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