Biggest mistake Indian voters made since the start of covid-19 pandemic

The biggest mistake most of the Indian voters made since the start of the covid-19 pandemic (February 2020 to March 2021) is to not hold the state governments accountable for the poor health infrastructure in their states.

People failed to understand that health is a state subject for administration. People failed to realise that a state is responsible for oxygen availability, doctors, nurses, an ample number of hospital beds and the availability of basic medicines.

Just because covid pandemic is a national emergency does not mean that the Central government is responsible for everything. There are different types of emergencies and covid pandemic is a health emergency. While the Central government is responsible for certain tasks (such as restricting air travel, negotiating with vaccine manufacturers at scale for vaccine production, research, national policies, coordinating various tasks between states, etc), the states are responsible for the actual healthcare provided on-the-ground.

Unless people start holding various actors in the ecosystem accountable for their respective duties, the problems will persist.

Most of the efforts of almost all state governments (including that of the chief ministers, state health ministers, state health departments) have been subpar.