As Gujarat reels at rising cases and deaths, some are busy making money and increase profit

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s admission, “Mere khoon me vyaapar hai” (there is trade and commerce in my blood) and Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s comment that “Gandhiji was a Bania” (Hindu caste of traders) reflect the mindset of the mercantile people in Gujarat.

Another much publicized one-liner of PM Modi “Convert adversity into opportunity” also represents the Gujarati businessman’s penchant for making money in adversity. No wonder manufacturers of Oxygen in Gujarat have jacked up the price of Oxygen cylinders by as much as 60 per cent following a sudden spurt in its demand from critically ill patients.

The severe scarcity of Remdesivir injection, recommended for use in mild infections has created a flourishing black market with pharmacists selling each vial of the injection at anything between Rs 5,000 and Rs 15,000. BJP’s Gujarat president C.R. Patil has been distributing it free of cost from the party’s office in Surat to anyone who had obtained a token from BJP workers. While Remdesivir injection had vanished from drug stores in Gujarat, Patil had procured a stock of 5,000 vials. “I got them from my friends,” he told journalists.

Like PM Modi, Chandrakant Raghunath Patil (CR Patil) too has trade and commerce in his blood and is also a past master of converting ‘adversity into opportunity’. Before he joined politics, CR Patil was a constable with the Gujarat police, who was suspended for his alleged nexus with bootleggers in the illicit liquor trade. He had also served a term in jail for defaulting on loan from a cooperative bank.

Black market operators with BJP links were arrested recently from Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat and Rajkot for hoarding and selling Remdesivir injections. A racket of selling this life-saving injection was found to be operating from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel hospital, which has been designated as a COVID-19 hospital.