JOIN USIn a quixotic move, the Yediyurappa government has turned Ramanagara district, which was until now a COVID-19-free ‘green zone’, into a potential hotspot. In a decision that defies all logic, the government shifted 120-odd people who were arrested for unleashing violence on health workers in Bengaluru’s Padarayanapura to the Ramanagara jail. Prisoners already in Ramanagara were moved to Parapannahalli central prison in Bengaluru. Considering that health workers were attacked when they had gone to quarantine secondary contacts of those infected, common sense would have dictated that there was a high possibility of some of the arrested testing positive. The accused should have been instantly quarantined in one of the government facilities like Victoria Hospital, which has been converted into an exclusive 1,500-bed coronavirus centre.
Though former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy, who once represented Ramanagara—his wife Anitha Kumaraswamy is the current MLA—had raised the red flag well in advance, the government chose to ignore him. It is a different matter that Kumaraswamy might have forfeited his right to question the government, having conducted his son’s wedding in the same district during the lockdown. Nonetheless, Yediyurappa should have seen merit in his predecessor’s words, instead of bowing to pressure from some of his colleagues. This one act of nonchalance has set the timebomb ticking. Both the police personnel who accompanied the accused from Bengaluru and the jail staff in Ramanagara were apparently not wearing adequate protective gear, exposing them to the threat of contracting the virus. The prisoners, who were crammed in groups of 20 in a room, had shared utensils and bathrooms, putting all of them at risk. The decision to now bring them back to Bengaluru only compounds the error, indicating that a proper thought process had not gone into shifting the accused to Ramanagara in the first place.
This has also exposed the government to criticism that the entire circus was aimed at settling political scores. While the Kumaraswamy family has deep roots in Ramanagara, the district falls within the Bengaluru (Rural) parliamentary constituency, represented by KPCC president D K Shivakumar’s brother, D K Suresh. Though Yediyurappa has won praise from all quarters for his overall handling of the COVID-19 situation, the series of flip-flop decisions over various issues have begun to show him in poor light. Murmurs within the BJP that Yediyurappa is being deliberately misled by some of his colleagues to discredit him may not be wholly unfounded. It is thus imperative that the chief minister first sets his house in order and gets a credible set of advisers whom he can trust.