Corona Crisis: Telangana Governor’s Timely Action

Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan, who is a doctor by herself, has focused on the Corona crisis in the state. She had asked the Chief Secretary and principal secretary (health) to come to Raj Bhavan on Monday to know about the measures being taken by the state government. It is learnt that the duo informed the Governor that they would visit her on Tuesday.

The top officials defying the call of the Governor is being viewed in different angles. Political observers said that the BJP was trying to gain ground in the state through the Governor and that for the same reason, Tamilisai was playing an active role in taking stock of the situation and reviewing it. Earlier, the Governor also intervened into conducting of online calls by the state schools, collection of heavy tuition fee by the private schools and colleges.

In view of the increasing criticism of the state government by the BJP, political analysts view this as a parallel system being run in the state government. Under normal circumstances, the Governor’s call will have utmost importance and the officials will attend the meet deferring the scheduled programmes but for reasons unknown, the higher officials put her on the backseat, which has kicked up a political debate.

On Monday evening, for more than an hour, the Governor shared her opinions about Covid-19 with netizens on Twitter. It is also learnt that the TS Governor would meet the management of private healthcare providers today, in the wake of the health officials complaining that the private hospitals were giving false reports to them.

Tamilisai reminded that she has been studying the Coronavirus crisis for the last three months and that she also visited NIMS personally during the current crisis time. She tweeted that she had given several suggestions to the government.

She said that the netizens complained to her about the state government, negligence of the officials and that the government has failed in handling the Corona crisis efficiently. They also complained that the private hospitals were charging heavily from the Corona patients. The Governor replied to all the queries and lent a patient ear to the complaints of the netizens.

The Governor said that she had noted down the suggestions given by the superintendents of Covid hospitals, health university V-C and Covid-19 committee members during meetings held with them.

Meanwhile, the Opposition members and political experts see the Governor’s intervention into the Corona crisis as a failure of the state government. It is only when the situation has gone out of control that Governors are allowed to interfere into matters and make suggestions, say political observers.

At the same time, there is criticism against the TS Chief Secretary and principal secretary (health) for failing to respect the Governor’s call and visiting her when she asked them to call on her. They are being faulted for neglecting the call of the Constitutional head. The top officials are learnt to have told the Governor that they are preoccupied with other scheduled programmes and that they would visit her on Wednesday. It is also being said that the ruling TRS party is behind the officials caring a hoot to the Governor’s call.

However, the ruling TRS leaders maintained that there was no conflict of interest between the state government and the Governor. The Governor can take stock of the situation whenever she feels like by calling the officials and the state government was also not against it, the TRS leaders said.

Further, the TRS leaders claimed that they were working as per the ICMR guidelines and the Centre’s directives with regard to providing treatment to Covid-19 patients and charging for related tests.