Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, has practically paralysed the planet. On Tuesday, India went into a 21-day country-w...
Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, has practically paralysed the planet. On Tuesday, India went into a 21-day country-wide lockdown, the world’s largest quarantine measure ever.
Yet one activity seems remarkably unaffected: the political wheeling and dealing of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Horse trading in the time of Covid
Take Madhya Pradesh. On Monday, the BJP got its eleventh chief minister as Shivraj Singh Chauhan took oath in the state.
The Congress lost power in the state after winning the elections held in November after of 22 of its MLAs resigned on March 10. They quit after the resignation of senior leader Congress Jyotiraditya Scindia, who joined the BJP almost immediately.
As remarkable as the the BJP managing to ensure government formation in a state election it had lost yet again was the fact that this intense political drama had played out against the backdrop of Covid-19 growing exponentially in India.
The day the 22 MLAs resigned, India had hit its first red mark of 50 cases. The day Chauhan was sworn in, that number had grown 10 times.
Yet, as India stared at its greatest threat in its 70-year existence, the ruling party in New Delhi was expending its energies on a power tussle in one state.
Erasing anti-NRC graffiti
A similar dynamic played out in Delhi, as the Modi-government controlled Delhi...
