It’s a simple question: How did the rate of cases in Kerala decline after 29/30 March, even though it was reported that a large number of Malayalees had returned to the state after attending the Nizamuddin Markaz?

How come fresh clusters sprang up, and proliferated swiftly in all other states hit by the Jamaat tornado, but the exact opposite happened in Kerala?

Are we to believe that this is a rare coincidence? Hard as that may seem, and laudable while Vijayan’s efforts at containing the epidemic might be, such a coincidence appears, at least prima facie, as a statistical improbability.

The problem is, this serious discrepancy might actually have passed our scrutiny, but for Vijayan’s statement of 2 April. He said that all the attendees had been identified (read here, here and here). How could he say that so early on, when even today, the list of attendees is incomplete, and hundreds are reported to have switched off their phones and gone missing?

Why did he issue such an authoritative statement so quickly? What was the basis of his confidence? He can’t say ‘intelligence sources’ because his sources don’t operate outside the state, and also because, as on date, central agencies are still trying to finalise that list. We will know the truth only when Vijayan discloses all pertinent information.

Until then, the queries will only mount:

What is the full and final tally of Markaz attendees from Kerala?

How were they identified?

Where were they quarantined?

How many people did they come in contact with?

When, where and how were those contacts identified and quarantined?

What about the contacts of contacts? How many of them were tested?

How many of those tested were virus-positive?

Where are the contact-tracing details?

How do the contact tracing and sample testing data match up?

Why have they not been released to the public?

It would be uncharitable to dwell further on this point, save to say that if information is being withheld, it would not be a service to society. Surely, Vijayan understands the meaning of that, and will do the needful, swiftly.

5. The Congress-Led Opposition’s Intriguing Silence

Why has the opposition not asked the right questions yet? What happened to their usual caterwauling about all things irrelevant and inconsequential? Very strange indeed.

Is the Congress-led UDF opposition in Kerala silent because they anticipate deeply inconvenient answers? Does it have anything to do with the demographics of their coalition partners? Do they know something we don’t, a priori? Or are they just woefully ignorant of facts? We won’t know until they answer.

The Congress-led UDF certainly can’t say that their reticence stems from decency amidst a crisis, because then they will be asked where that same decency was, when they shamelessly asked for proof in the wake of Uri and Balakot.

And they certainly also can’t invoke as defence, a fig leaf of an attempt, to try and hang a corruption scandal on Vijayan (involving a Malayalee-run, US-based IT/PR firm; read here). That is because only an outfit of suspect competence would try to pull such a stunt, in the midst of a pandemic.

With their wealth of experience, the UDF should have known that corruption cases rarely sprout wings in the midst of a calamity. This one didn’t even get out of the egg!

Consequently, until the UDF constituent heads break their silence, and start to question the Marxists properly, they will have to live with the ignominy that their role was taken over temporarily by Swarajya.

So it must be asked: What is going on in Kerala under Vijayan?

Unfortunately, there are few answers. On the contrary, Vijayan has stopped releasing requisite patient details ever since the Tablighi Jamaat cluster came to light. He has not been adequately forthcoming either, on patient information, or on clusters. And he is yet to be asked probing questions on glaring, self-evident inconsistencies in case reporting, mortality, and epidemic spread.

Instead, his haste has been to try and lift lockdown restrictions in spite of persistent discrepancies. Therefore, his data management and reporting do not pass muster, especially following the Tablighi Jamaat virus dispersal event.

Be that as it may, it is Vijayan who heads the state of Kerala for now, so it is he who will have to answer the questions raised. If he doesn’t, and if the omissions noted are not satisfactorily resolved by Vijayan, his political future could adopt a new trend.

The people of Kerala would see to that. They have cures for everything.