Priyanka fires fresh salvo at Centre over vax drive

After pillorying the Centre over its failure that led to a scarcity of vaccines leaving millions vulnerable to the second Covid wave in India, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra fired a fresh salvo at the Modi government’s “floundering vaccination programme” on Tuesday.

Priyanka alleged that the data gathered from around the world indicated that vaccination was an effective tool for the management of corona infection and those countries which vaccinated a significant percentage of their population faced a milder second wave than those that did not.

“India’s second corona wave accounted for 320 per cent more cases than last year’s first wave and this is the highest percentage of increase from one wave to the next in the world,” she said.

Through a tweet made on Tuesday, the top Congress honcho asked, “So how did this situation come about in a country that had plenty of experience in rolling out vaccine programs ? Why is it that only 12 per cent of our population received the first dose of the Covid vaccine and only 3.4 per cent citizens were fully vaccinated so far.”
“In his Independence Day speech in 2020, the Prime Minister had declared that his government was ready with a vaccine roll out plan to cover every single Indian within the year. But by April 2021, as the second corona wave hit us, he did a complete U-turn. Instead of owning up full responsibility to vaccinate all Indian citizens, his government began to systematically pass the buck to state governments. In fact, the Modi government’s vaccination policy was guided by a series of confused decisions that rendered it sluggish and ineffective,” she further charged.

Priyanka further alleged that until May, 1 this year, the Modi government had only ordered 34 crore vaccines out of the 200 crores needed to vaccinate all countrymen. “Assessing that there was an inadequate number of vaccines to go around, the Modi government subsequently compelled state governments to float their own tenders for vaccines.
Companies like Pfizer and Moderna, however, refused to supply to the state governments. After initiating vaccination for the 18-45 year age group, the Union government soon learnt about a decrease of 83 per cent in the rate of vaccinations due to its unavailability. Instead of doing everything to bridge the deficit, it conveniently passed the responsibility of vaccinating this age group to the state governments,” she stressed.

The Congress leader further flayed the Modi regime over the difference in vaccine prices. “Instead of ensuring a uniform price of vaccines for all Indians, the Centre acquired vaccines for Rs 150 and sold them to state governments for Rs 400 and to the private hospitals for Rs. 600. “Should the Modi government not explain about the difference in prices for the same vaccine. Bsides, the registration process for getting jabs has been made so tedious that it impedes the pace of the vaccination programme. 55 percent of India’s rural population does not have access to the Internet. Also, numerous citizens still do not possess the mandatory Aadhaar or Pan cards required for registration,” she said.