Ramdev lauds BJP govt's effort in Madhya Pradesh to fight Covid-19

A common agenda

Opposition leaders are aiming to emerge from their Friday (virtual) meeting with an agreement on a common agenda — issues the parties would raise in the coming months. According to sources, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who heads the Trinamool Congress, will speak on how the Centre is not respecting federalism, depriving states of funds, providing faulty test kits, and on the lack of planning by the Centre before announcing the lockdown or handling the migrant crisis. Communist Party of India (Marxist) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury will ask other opposition parties to agree to his party’s demands from the government, such as 10 kg of foodgrains among the needy for free, reversing certain changes in labour laws, releasing funds to the states, procuring immediately the rabi harvest, and minor forest produce at minimum support price. It would be interesting to see if arch rivals Trinamool and CPI(M) agree on most issues. 

Baba v/s data 

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Madhya Pradesh recently got a pat on the back from yoga guru-turned-businessman Ramdev. He held discussions with Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Health Minister Narottam Mishra, and all chief medical officers of Madhya Pradesh over video-conferencing and said under the leadership of Chouhan, the state had done a commendable job of checking the spread of the coronavirus. Ramdev said the state government’s experiment of boosting people’s immunity with ayurvedic medicines could be a model for the world. Ramdev was referring to trikut kadha (a decoction), which was distributed among the state’s 20 million people. However, the data doesn’t support Ramdev’s claims. With more than 5,700 cases, Madhya Pradesh is at number six in terms of Covid-19 cases. India’s cleanest city, Indore, has more than 2,700 cases and Bhopal approximately 1,100.

Feather in Baghel's cap

The government of Chhattisgarh, run by the Congress, on Thursday launched the Rajiv Gandhi Kisan Nyay Yojana. The party’s president, Sonia Gandhi, and leader Rahul Gandhi joined Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel via videoconference for the launch in Raipur. In the first phase of the scheme, the state government will deposit in the bank accounts of 1.9 million farmers Rs 5,750 crore in four instalments to cover the difference between the Congress’ promise of increasing the minimum support price for paddy to Rs 2,500 (the Centre is purchasing it at Rs 1,825). The first instalment of Rs 1,500 crore was transferred to the bank accounts of the farmers on Thursday. Rahul Gandhi said people needed cash more than credit, and the scheme met that objective. Sonia Gandhi said the second phase would include rural landless workers. The scheme is a feather in Baghel’s cap. He has a rival in senior minister T S Singh Deo, who is keen to be chief minister.