COVID-19: Is Mamata being unfairly targeted by the BJP?

Bengal BJP is aggressively targeting Mamata. Home Ministry and Health Ministry officials are sending out letters pointing out to multiple flaws in the way Mamata is managing COVID-19 response. Let us look at the facts and check if these comments are fair.

Cases Rate

Gujarat: 140 per Million

Bengal: 23 per Million

Gujarat and MP are far worse than Bengal. But this may be due to low Testing by Bengal

However, States like Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan with large populations do not have these many cases inspite of heavy testing

Test to Case Rate

The argument is that Bengal has done fewer Tests. That is true if one looks at the data below.

Gujarat with 70% of Bengal’s population completed the same number of Tests on 24th April (18 days before). So Bengal has been lagging from rest of country. Slow testing leads to later detection of cases and a higher death rate.

However, Many non-BJP ruled States have completed even more Tests. AP completed these many tests by 23rd April (Inspite of lower population than MP and Gujarat) and Rajasthan completed these many by 18th April.

Another Important statistic is.

Bengal has completed 47600 tests for an incidence of 2063 cases

Gujarat finished almost the same number of Tests on 24th April, It had 2800 cases

So even when Bengal has increased its rate of testing, the case increase is not as much as other States

Death Rate

On death rate,

Bengal is at 9.2% of Total cases, the worst in the Country. Only Maharashtra has come close to these numbers (7.5%). This is primarily due to two reasons – Slow Testing and Poor Health Infra

When Gujarat and MP were at the same number of cases, the % of deaths were 4.8% and 5% respectively. However, with these numbers, TN was at 1%, Rajasthan was at 1.6% and Andhra around 2%. So the two BJP ruled States were 2 to 2.5 times more than many other States

In Conclusion

On most Aspects, Bengal has managed COVID-19 Poorly. The BJP criticism is therefore Fair and in the best interest of the State.

The only problem is that BJP ruled States like MP and Gujarat have also done a very shoddy job of managing COVID-19 when compared with other Non-BJP ruled States like TN, Rajasthan or Andhra Pradesh (all with 2k+ cases).

BJP has to deal with this contradiction as well.