No bihar first possible in vaccination

No bihar first possible in vaccination

The controversy over BJP’s election promise of free Covid vaccines for everyone in Bihar is much ado about nothing.

There would be a problem only if the promise meant, one, Bihar would get the vaccine before other states, two, breaking the group wise priority determined, on the basis of each group’s Covid risk, for receiving the vaccine, or three, if the central government were footing the bill for mass vaccination in one state alone. In reality, none of these offending conditions can obtain, and so, there is little reason to cry foul over a party promising voters that, if voted to power, its government would provide free vaccines for everyone.

In terms of optics, the fact that Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman made the announcement carried the suggestion that free vaccines for Bihar are a central scheme. After all, she is not a natural choice as a national leader to make a political announcement in poll-bound Bihar, people seeing her mostly as the administrative head of the Union finance ministry. But it is natural for a party to make as much campaign magic as it can get away with. It is for the media, if not for the Opposition, to ask pointed questions, such as whether the proposal entails Bihar getting vaccines at the expense of any other state, to dispel the optical illusion and render the promise a normal election promise. So normal, indeed, that at least two more state governments have announced free vaccines for their people.

The Union government will probably have to foot the bill for creating the logistics of vaccine distribution and storage, while the states pick up the tab for the vaccine doses needed for their people. Only by taking poll promises adamantly at their face value can such discussion be dispensed with.