Rahul Gandhi on Saturday flagged the government’s mismanagement of the epidemic and the economy that has pushed India close to the bottom of Asia’s growth and Covid charts, and regretted that the Prime Minister’s response had been to shed tears.
Posting a widely shared chart on social media that shows India to have been a laggard in terms of Covid deaths per million population and economic growth, Rahul tweeted: “No Vaccines. Lowest GDP. Highest Covid deaths... the Government of India response? PMCries.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on Friday appeared to choke on his tears while talking about the Covid deaths.
While India’s economy was hit the hardest in the last financial year, with GDP growth dipping to minus 24, the latest chart puts India’s growth at minus 8 per cent, with the Philippines the lone Asian country to have done worse at minus 8.3 per cent.
Bangladesh tops the table at 3.8 per cent, and Myanmar, China, Vietnam, Bhutan and Pakistan too have registered positive growth. India, Indonesia, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Thailand and Philippines are in negative territory.
In terms of Covid deaths per million population, India has been the worst at 212 deaths, followed by Nepal at 204 and the Philippines and Indonesia at 178. Pakistan has recorded 89 deaths per million, and China has recorded just 3 per million.
India lags many countries also in terms of vaccinating its citizens, despite being the world’s biggest manufacturer of vaccines and despite having developed two Covid vaccines in good enough time.
Former finance minister P. Chidambaram said through a series of tweets: “Both International Monetary Fund and World Health Organisation have cautioned India about the consequences of the slow pace of vaccination. The claim of the Union Health Minister of getting 216 crore vaccine doses by December 31 to vaccinate the entire adult population by that date must be backed by hard data. So far, it is not.”
He added: “We need data on capacity of domestic producers, orders placed vaccine-wise, import contracts concluded, agreed schedule of delivery etc. Nothing has been disclosed so far.”
A vaccine shortage has forced many vaccination centres to close just when India is reeling under the Covid second wave.
“The final warning to the Government is that if vaccinations are not accelerated, it will not be possible to prevent a third wave. The Modi Government cannot say ‘we did not anticipate these consequences’. The Government has been duly forewarned,” Chidambaram said.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi too wrote to Modi seeking free treatment for those infected by the black fungus.
“The Government of India has just asked states to declare mucormycosis as an epidemic under the Epidemic Diseases Act. This means that there must be (1) adequate production and assured supply of essential medicines to treat it; and (2) cost-free patient care for those in need of treatment,” she wrote.
“I understand that liposomal amphotericin B is absolutely essential for the treatment of mucormycosis.
However, there are reports of its acute scarcity in the market. Further, the illness is not covered in Ayushman Bharat and most other health insurance products.
“I would request you to kindly take immediate action on this matter to bring relief to the large number of patients being afflicted by mucormycosis.”
Rahul too tweeted about the black fungus, saying: “Because of Modi system’s failure, only India is grappling with black fungus along with Corona. Apart from scarcity of vaccines, medicine for this disease is also not available. To deal with it, the Prime Minister might be preparing to announce a thali-taali programme.”
His last comment was a dig at Modi’s appeal last year to citizens to clap and bang plates to keep the virus at bay.