Halt Covid vaccine exports: Rahul Gandhi to PM Modi
New Delhi: A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi rejected the demands of the states to open the vaccination for all, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has written a letter to the PM and urged that vaccination should be opened to "everyone who needs it".
In response to Rahul's letter to the PM, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has accused the Congress leader of lobbying for pharma companies after the latter's letter to Prime Minister Modi on vaccine shortages, seeking fast track approvals for other vaccine candidates.
The former Congress president has also urged the PM to immediately put a halt on vaccine exports as it may have "catastrophic effects" on the economy if inoculations continued at the current pace. The Congress leader also urged the government to fast-track other vaccines.
Without taking names in his swipe at PM Modi's photos on certificates handed out to those who get vaccinated, Rahul, in his letter, said, "Our vaccination programme has to move beyond an individual's picture on the vaccine certificate, towards guaranteeing maximum vaccination."
The efforts of the scientific community and vaccine makers had been undermined by the "centre's poor implementation and oversight", he said, adding that India had first-mover advantage in vaccination and "yet we are moving at snail's pace" and fully vaccinate less than one per cent of the population in three months.
At our current vaccination rate, it will take years to inoculate 75 per cent of the population. This will have catastrophic effects and will gravely decelerate India's economy," he warned.
The Congress MP also raised questions on India shipping vaccines to other countries at a time its domestic needs were pressing, with a record rise in infections in the second wave of Covid.
"There is no clear reason as to why the government permitted large scale exports of vaccines. While our nation is facing vaccine starvation, more than six crore doses of vaccine have been exported," he said.
"The state governments are repeatedly highlighting vaccine shortages only to receive intemperate statements by the Union Health Minister targeting opposition-ruled states, undercutting cooperative federalism, which you too have stressed as essential," he said.
In a series of tweets, Prasad said, "After failing as a part-time politician, has Rahul Gandhi switched to full-time lobbying? First, he lobbied for fighter plane companies by trying to derail India's acquisition programme. Now he is lobbying for pharma companies by asking for arbitrary approvals for foreign vaccines."
"Fighting a pandemic is not a one-trick game. Apart from vaccination, there needs to be adequate focus on testing, tracing & treating. Rahul Gandhi's problem is that he doesn't understand all this and his ignorance is compounded by his arrogance," the
Minister added.
Reacting to Prasad's remarks, Congress chief leader spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said, "You and ministers in government have become perpetually ranting, ill-tempered, churlish trolls. We will lobby for every Indian to be vaccinated and end of discrimination in allocation of vaccine to opposition states."
