SASCHA WIL­SON

For­mer Prime Min­is­ter, Bas­deo Pan­day, has called for the seg­re­ga­tion of vac­ci­nat­ed and un­vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple in the coun­try.

Speak­ing on Aakash Vani 106.5 FM’s Morn­ing Pan­chay­at show, Mr Pan­day said while it is peo­ple’s choice not to take the vac­cine, they should not be al­lowed to put him at risk of con­tract­ing COVID-19.

This comes as COVID-19 in­fec­tions and deaths in the coun­try have sky­rock­et­ed, and calls for manda­to­ry vac­ci­na­tions in­crease.

Asked what he would have done had he been the prime min­is­ter dur­ing this pan­dem­ic, Bas­deo Pan­day said:

“I do not re­al­ly know what the facts are but I would cer­tain­ly try to have the en­tire coun­try vac­ci­nat­ed.  One, two and three shots what­ev­er is need­ed.”

How­ev­er, the for­mer PM ob­served in or­der to do that the law must be en­forced.

“We have lots of reg­u­la­tions in the coun­try to­day, but the law is not en­forced. You go around and you see the law be­ing bro­ken all over the place. So, if peo­ple know that they are go­ing to have to obey the law, you’re go­ing to have a dif­fer­ent sce­nario. That’s the first thing,” he said.

“Al­so, they have not in­sti­tut­ed—al­though the [coun­try’s in­fec­tions] are high—what is called the sep­a­ra­tion of those who are vac­ci­nat­ed from those who are not,” Mr Pan­day point­ed out.

“Peo­ple say they are free not to be vac­ci­nat­ed.  That may be true but they are not free to cause me to get it and die. So, I will sep­a­rate the vac­ci­nat­ed from those who are not, and [have] laws to do that and en­force the law,” he as­sert­ed.

Ad­dress­ing the crime sit­u­a­tion, Mr Pan­day said as prime min­is­ter, he pro­vid­ed the re­sources to the law en­force­ment agen­cies while he prop­er­ly man­aged the re­sources and made sure peo­ple did what they were sup­posed to.

“I do not know if that is be­ing done and I do not know what are the mea­sures that have been tak­en in or­der to en­sure first of all re­sources and sec­ond man­age­ment,” he added. 

Pan­day al­so said the cur­rent state of pol­i­tics is one of chaos.

“It con­sists of noth­ing more than a naked strug­gle for pow­er be­cause once they have pow­er, they have con­trol over the state re­sources and can do what they want to do,” he said.

The for­mer prime min­is­ter said this prob­lem oc­curs be­cause of the con­sti­tu­tion­al arrange­ment. and the on­ly way out of it is con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form.