Election Campaign: Right or Responsibility?

Among other things, there are basically two sets of issues that call into question governments’ approach and attitude towards handling the danger of the pandemic on the one hand and the election campaigners’ claim to put the right to campaign above responsibility. In response to the first set, one may possibly argue that the approach the central government seems to have adopted towards fighting the coronavirus has been criticised by different state governments. However, as far as the first issue is concerned, the editorial in the current issue convincingly helps us to understand the central government’s problematic response to meet the need for vaccines as voiced by some of the state governments, particularly those that are outside the ruling combination at the centre. According to the press reports, the central government is accused of discriminatory approach towards those state governments that belong to the opposition. Since the editorial in the current issue deals with the central response to the vaccine crisis faced by the states, it is necessary to focus on the second issue.

Political leaders could argue, and according to press reports, some of them have indeed argued that they have a constitutional right to campaign, irrespective of the crisis that has engulfed the entire country in its vortex. The second issue is privileging the right to campaign over responsibility to avoid crowded campaigning that is imminently active in spreading the virus. The desire to privilege right over responsibility led the star campaigners to bring the tension to bear on the relationship between the rights and responsibility on the one hand and duty and responsibility on the other.