Vaccines for Votes? Blatant COVID Advantage to Poll-Bound Bihar?

BJP has promised free vaccine to the people of Bihar, but what about other states? Is it only because of the polls?

While a successful coronavirus vaccine is nowhere in sight, the BJP has already promised free vaccination for the people of Bihar.

(Photo: The Quint)

Video Editor: Prashant Chauhan and Kunal Mehra

While a successful coronavirus vaccine is nowhere in sight, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has already promised free vaccination to the people of Bihar, which inevitably begs the questions – what about other states? And would Bihar have got free vaccines if there were no elections?

The BJP is finding ‘opportunity in disaster’ by making the coronavirus vaccine an election issue to get more votes.

It is important to note that a few days after BJP in their Bihar election manifesto promised free vaccines to Bihar, Union Minister Pratap Sarangi said that the vaccines will be free for all states.

However, if we were to believe that the other states would eventually get the vaccines for free, why hasn’t the government made a proper announcement.

Right now, India is the country with the second-highest number of coronavirus cases and it has seen a severe lack of hospital beds, oxygen cylinders and ventilators in many states, especially Bihar.

With a population of 12 crore, Bihar doesn’t even have more than 1,200 ventilators. 

There are more striking numbers. In Bihar, approximately 90,000 people are dependent on government hospitals, while the national average is around 50,000. And while the ideal doctor per number of people should be 1:1000 as per the WHO, in Bihar it is 1:43,788.

All these circumstances beg the question – Janab Aise Kaise?