It is a disgrace that the vaccination drive in Goa is turning into a murky political slugfest with parties jostling for space and using the platform to reach out to people with an eye on electoral gains. On Thursday, BJP and Congress workers almost came to blows at the Tika Utsav in Margao, each trying to reach out to people, and on Friday when the Tika Utsav moved to Fatorda, both BJP and Goa Forward were at the helm putting their arrangements in place.
Interestingly, with political heavyweights and their supporters making their presence felt, nobody appears to be perturbed about the dismal response. Much against the argument which parties are raising that the government failed in vaccination, leaders across the spectrum should share part of the blame for the low turnout in Congress-ruled Margao and Goa Forward’s stronghold of Fatorda. In Margao for example, the daily inoculation was around 100-odd people and sometimes less, and Fatorda was no different.
The Congress party on Friday submitted a memorandum to President Ram Nath Kovind through Governor of Goa BS Koshiyari asking him to expedite the vaccination process. If the point here is about the failure of the government to secure lives through vaccination, then political dispensations across the State cannot isolate themselves from a responsibility of reaching out to people and creating awareness in the larger interest. It’s time this politically targeted blame game should stop.
Political leaders of all hues, including the BJP, have only turned up at the centres, put up banners, clicked selfies with people and turned these drives into a complete electoral campaign, nothing else. The objective and the seriousness of securing lives are lost. Chief Minister lamenting the poor response of only 1,300 on Friday speaks volumes of a systemic failure.
Sawant’s ambition of Goa becoming the first to be fully vaccinated will be a pipedream because the vaccine numbers don’t add up and the government is simply not able to leverage its doses within age groups. The simple logic is that the State cannot make steady progress on inoculation going at the current rate. The CM will have to devise ways to optimize vaccination instead of depriving other age groups. It baffles the mind why the backlog of doses are not used for other age groups, even though the 45+ category is not showing an encouraging response. Why is the government leaving a large section of people vulnerable when it has doses in hand?
Sawant needs to rework strategies and open up vaccination for the 18-44 year group without the mandatory online registration process. With only five lakh people vaccinated in Goa, the target of 100 % vaccination for all adults by July 30 is highly improbable. It is rather amusing how such timelines are set when the very supply of doses is in doubt.
Yes, the bottom line is that vaccination has to be scaled up, but at the same time, all the politics that surrounds it need to stop immediately.
