COVID-19: Kerala Flattens Curve, But Opposition Continues Attack on State Govt

The Left Front government in Kerala has received wide commendation for its efforts to deal with COVID-19 pandemic, even as the rest of country continues to witness a rise in the number of cases. When the state’s approach to COVID-19 patients, people who are under observation and quarantine, risk groups, healthcare workers, vulnerable communities is being hailed as a role model for many states, the opposition parties, which were initially working with the government, have started attacking it with several allegation.

The Congress-led Opposition, which had initially pledged support to the Communist Party of India (Marxist) led Left Front government, seems to have drifted away. Rather than demanding the Centre for allocation of more funds to the cash-crunched state, the focus of Opposition has shifted to attacking the state government to gain more political mileage. In one instance, the Opposition leader and senior congress leader Ramesh Chennithala had accused the CPI(M) of deriving political mileage out of COVID-19 crisis.

The state government, however, has been strengthening their activities and focused on minute details on needs of the society. The government started distributing free rations to all, shelter homes for the homeless and migrant workers, community kitchens and stated distributing cooked food for the people who are under isolation. A revival package of Rs 20,000 crore was announced to ensure the flow of money, early distribution of the social security pensions, etc., along with others.

The latest such attack on the government began on April 10, when the Congress alleged that the state government has entrusted a US company- Sprinkler- to analyse data on COVID-19 patients in the state.

Later the Opposition leader moved the Kerala High Court seeking quashing of an agreement the state government had entered with Sprinklr for processing COVID-19 patients' data.
In his PIL, Chennithala alleged that the sensitive personal data of those suspected and positive COVID-19 pandemic patients in Kerala has been transferred to New York- based Sprinklr company in violation of their fundamental right of privacy guaranteed by the Constitution.

Challenging the state government's deal with Sprinklr, the senior Congress leader submitted that the state is under constitutional obligation to ensure that the fundamental right of every citizens including those who are undergoing home isolation are protected. The state government has constituted a two-member committee to examine whether the privacy of personal and sensitive data of COVID-19 patients has been protected under the agreement entered by it with US-based IT firm Sprinklr. The Congress has been levelling charges that the collection of data by the U.S firm violated the fundamental rights of the patients.

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Sprinklr, launched in January 2010 in New York, is an IT company which develops a SaaS customer experience management (CXM) platform. The data collected by healthcare workers including details of COVID-19 patients, suspects and home quarantined persons are compiled and analysed by Sprinklr and these compiled data help the state government to identify the hotspots, vulnerable areas and “in taking preventive measures like reverse quarantine, in which the aged and people with other co morbidities are isolated.”

The state government signed the purchase order with the company on April 2, while the deal has retrospective effect from March 25. The validity of the project is till September 24 or till the end of the pandemic, whichever is earlier.

When the Opposition focused on Sprinkler, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that the state’s primary focus is on fighting against the pandemic. On April 19, he alleged that efforts were being made to undermine the achievements of the state government in its fight against COVID-19 and said he was "ignoring" them as it was not the time for controversies. "Many developed nations are in awe of the achievements of Kerala in its fight against COVID-19 pandemic. This is the speciality of Kerala model," Vijayan had said.

"Those who think that the government should not have a reputation for effectively handling the coronavirus outbreak are engaged in slandering the state government. It has happened before, it's happening now also. This is not the time to go behind controversies. People are watching and they will evaluate," he had added.

He maintained that he had decided to ignore such controversies. The ward-level committees, set up by the government for the anti-COVID-19 fight, was collecting information of those under home isolation, elderly persons and those at the risk of the disease using a questionnaire in this regard and upload it on the server of the private agency.

An interim order from the Kerala High Court on April 24 permitted the state government to utilise the services of the firm Sprinklr, for processing data, subject to stringent conditions. Responding to the interim order, the state CM said the court has not cancelled or stayed the agreement as sought by the Opposition.

"The main petition was to cancel the agreement or to stay it. However, it didn't happen and asked us to go ahead. With regard to the security of the data, the state government had taken necessary steps. There is no dilution in that matter," VIjayan said.

Earlier in the first half of March this year, when the state had reported the second stage of COVID-19 outbreak, the Opposition leader had stated that the Health Minister KK Shailaja, who has been at the forefront of the government’s response to this crisis, should put an end to her media mania.

Chennithala’s response came a day after the Health Minister had told in the Assembly that the Opposition has failed to understand the gravity of the problem, referring to a Facebook post of the opposition leader criticising Shailiaja’s public condemnation of the Italy returned family.

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At the Assembly floor, Chennithala had said that Kerala should adopt mitigation measures like in America and Britain instead of trying to contain the spread of pandemic. He even argued that unlike Nipah virus, the new disease could not be fully eradicated. “It would stay on in mild doses,” he had said in the Assembly.

This was not the final incident, the Opposition continued to unleash many campaigns against the government. One among those campaigns was against the salary challenge of the state government. On April 1, the Opposition stood against decision of the Cabinet to “appropriate a month’s salary” from state employees to the Chief Minister’s Distress Relief Fund (CMDRF).
Meanwhile, the state has managed to flatten the curve. The second week of April has seen more number of recoveries than number of new positive cases.

(With Inputs from PTI)