The Congress believes the government is still obsessed with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s image-building instead of taking the vaccination drive seriously as manifested in the exceptional hype created around the decision to give free shots and the over 80 lakh doses administered on Monday.
Rahul Gandhi tweeted on Wednesday: “Our country is not secured unless big vaccination drive is carried out in a sustained manner. It is sad that the central government hasn’t been able to go beyond a PR event.”
The Modi government is in overdrive on a “thank-you Prime Minister” mission, trying to present the accomplishment of giving 80 lakh (8 million) doses in a day as an unparalleled event. Big hoardings and banners have been put across the national capital thanking the Prime Minister for announcing free vaccines for all and conducting the special drive on June 21. Huge amounts of money were spent by the BJP-ruled states in putting up advertisements thanking the Prime Minister.
While China has been constantly vaccinating over 17 million people daily, India is placed at 93rd rank in the world in terms of the fully vaccinated percentage of population. This is not very encouraging as India is the biggest manufacturer of vaccines in the world. The government has promised to complete the exercise by the year-end but the number of daily doses dipped sharply after the June 21 figure.
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra highlighted this in a tweet: “Delta plus variant has already arrived. Only 3.6 per cent population has been fully vaccinated so far. But the Prime Minister is playing the role of event manager. After patting their back for high doses, vaccination fell by over 40 per cent the very next day. The formula for propaganda of record vaccination: In Madhya Pradesh, doses on June 20 — 692; on June 21 — 16.91 lakh; June 22 — 4,825. High dose given one day for event and then a huge fall. At least 80 to 90 lakh doses will be required to be given everyday to complete the target by December.”
Former finance minister P. Chidambaram also tweeted: “Look at the numbers for MP (Madhya Pradesh), Karnataka and Haryana on Sunday to Tuesday. BJP governments pulling a rabbit out of a hat! Pure magic for a day! Watch UP (Uttar Pradesh) and Gujarat numbers for a few more days. I am appalled that eminent doctors attribute Monday’s record to ‘planning’. The plan was to ‘doctor’ the numbers on Monday.”
Former Union minister Jairam Ramesh also recalled how BJP veteran and Modi’s mentor L.K. Advani described the Prime Minister as the “best event manager”.
