In the Hot SEAT
Even as Unlock 1.0 gets under way, there is one state that can either uplift India or set it back severely in the tough battle against COVID-19: Maharashtra. India’s richest and second most populous state accounts for 15 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product and has a 30 per cent share in its direct taxes. Politically, it is the second most important state after Uttar Pradesh, sending 48 members to the Lok Sabha. But, with 72,300 infections and 2,465 deaths till June 2, the state now has the dubious distinction of topping the list of the country’s COVID-19 hotspots, accounting for 34.8 per cent of the nation’s total of 207,615 cases and 42 per cent of the 5,815 total deaths. Mumbai, the financial capital of the country, has emerged as the epicentre of the pandemic in the state, registering 43,492 cases and 1,417 deaths as on June 2. If there is an exponential rise in Covid cases in the next couple of weeks, it could have catastrophic human and economic consequences not just for the state but for the nation as well. Maharashtra has now become a crucial test case of India’s ability to handle the COVID-19 outbreak.
In its hour of crisis, the man in the hot seat is the state’s chief minister, Uddhav Thackeray, 59, who is also facing his biggest test. The once reluctant politician was catapulted to the chief minister’s chair at the end of November last year after his party, the Shiv Sena, ditched its alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and entered into an unusual post-electoral arrangement with traditional foes—the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Indian National Congress (INC)—in a 36-day backroom political drama. Thackeray, whose party has controlled Asia’s richest civic body, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), since 1997, has little administrative experience of his own. But he now runs a coalition government that has three former chief ministers who shaped the state’s destiny—Sharad Pawar, Prithviraj Chavan and Ashok Chavan. Not to mention a dozen ministers in his cabinet who have 15 years of administrative experience. That should have been enough answer to those doubting his and his alliance partners’ ability to help the state navigate these difficult times. Unfortunately, that has
