Assam has registered 62 CV positive cases so far. Days ago, two persons arriving from West Bengal tested Covid 19 positive. This prompted authorities to declare a state of high alert. Already, Assam had clamped down on the entry of people from Bengal in some sectors, except on humanitarian and medical grounds.

Only a few days back, the civil administration at Gossaingaon in Kokrajhar district, Assam, sealed link roads with West Bengal, after four CV positive cases were reported from Barobhisha at Coochbehar in WB). The place of occurrence is only 10 kilometres away from Gossaingaon. It was learnt that at least five people from Braobhisha area had recently visited Delhi.

There is a heavy movement of people and cargo along the National Highway 31 (c) between the two states, which has now dropped to a trickle. There were apprehensions in Dispur that vulnerable, high population density areas like Dhubri and Bongaigaon faced a high risk of mass infection. Already four people had been quarantined at Bongaigaon. At Gossaingaon , four quarantine centres were set up as more and more people underwent testing.

The possibility of a Corona virus infection is not the only irritant between Assam and Bengal. Authorities in Assam are upset about what they see as unilateral steps initiated by Nabanna (Bengal Secretariat) in the region that negatively impact administrative work elsewhere.

For instance, there is acute concern about the prolonged traffic deadlock along the NH 31, between Srirampur and Gossaingaon, where a 10 kilometre long queue of vehicles trucks and cars has been held up for days! The reason: an unannounced ‘sanitization drive’ launched in neighbouring Bengal, where the police and officials had stopped all incoming /outgoing traffic at the interstate border. However, they did not alert their counterparts in Assam.

Scores of drivers, passengers and sundry other people in Southern Assam have been stranded, without any relief. A shortage of food and other essentials was reported among them, putting the local administration under great strain. Many perishable items were damaged or lost, hitting border traders.

Observers noted that the traffic deadlock between West Bengal and Assam was no more than a replica of what has been happening between West Bengal and Bangladesh at the Petrapole-Benapole region. Bangladesh had complained to Delhi, along with Nepal and Bhutan, over the arbitrary halt announced by Kolkata on all to and from vehicular movements at the international border checkpoints. A pile-up of over 5,000 trucks on both sides of the Petrapole-Benapore checkpost remained stationary for days, playing havoc with bilateral border trade. This clearly violated existing international trade agreements.

Concerned, Delhi ordered Kolkata immediately to allow legal border vehicular movements. But Kolkata still pleaded that there was a genuine danger of mass CV infections. Currently, discussions are on to see if movement of people and cargo between West Bengal and other countries could be worked out by using trains.

In any case, such unexpected developments put Assam administrators/officials under great strain. Later they learnt that in some north Bengal areas close to the Assam border, several CV positive cases had been registered between Alipurduar and Coochbehar. Bengal officials had ordered a containment drive, putting some areas under restriction and banning all vehicular movement, as special check-up and quarantine camps were opened.

Observers do not rule out an element of politicisation in such incidents. Relations between Dispur and Kolkata have never been warm since the Bharatiya Janata party won the Assembly elections in Assam. Efforts made by the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in Bengal to strike a support base among Bengalis based in Assam did not go down well with the BJP for understandable reasons.

Some months ago, Dispur sent a high- power 5- member team of TMC MPs packing from the Borjhar airport, to Kolkata, after detaining them briefly. The TMC delegation had gone to local Bengalis following an incident where militants had killed two persons in Assam.

However, Bengal’s relations with its other neighbor, Odisha do not seem to be much better either. If anything, Odisha’s reaction to the possibility of a lethal Covid 19 group infection from Bengal has been sharper , more aggressive than that of Assam.

Odisha officials recently complained to the centre in an official communication that an unusually high percentage of Covid 19 positive cases registered among migrant workers returning home was directly traceable to West Bengal. A copy of the complaint was sent to Kolkata as well, but Nabanna –based officials have not commented on this yet.

Bengal officials were requested to ensure that the dreaded disease did not spread to the neighbouring states. In some cases, there were some ‘clandestine entries’ made by people coming in from Bengal, officials alleged.

CV positive cases number around 224 (figures 48 hours old) in Odisha, and about 50% people affected have come in from Bengal or Surat, say Odisha officials. Like West Bengal, Odisha initially reported very low figures related to the Pandemic. However, with around 35,000 working migrants now coming in from other states, the stats began to worse. The dreaded ‘doubling rate’ too has increased sharply, causing general concern. With an expected 500,000 plus migrants workers scheduled to return in the days ahead, clearly the worst of the crisis is yet to occur. (IPA Service)