Rahul Gandhi on Monday said the Narendra Modi government’s inability to arrange for enough vaccines was like stabbing Mother India as reports of closure of vaccination centres poured in from across the country.
Rahul said in an acerbic tweet: “Modi Government’s non-vaccination strategy is a dagger in Bharat Mata’s heart. Tragic truth.”
While the former Congress president has directly blamed the Prime Minister for the abnormally high number of deaths caused by the second wave of Covid-19, the latest attack is a subtle attempt to target the RSS-BJP’s self-proclaimed monopoly on patriotism.
The horrifying images of bodies strewn on the banks of the Ganga in several places in Uttar Pradesh have already bruised the Hindu sentiment. While the Ganga is linked with Hindus’ spiritual consciousness, it is also probably the greatest symbol of national pride. Rahul has now used this imagery of stabbing “Bharat Mata” in an obvious attempt to highlight that the failure to arrange vaccines for the people in time exposed the fake patriotic credentials of the BJP. He put out the message both in Hindi and English.
Posting another tweet that suggested that 97 per cent of Indians had become poorer post-Covid, Rahul tweeted: “One man and his arrogance + One virus and its mutants.”
This was again a direct attack on the Prime Minister for mismanaging both the pandemic and economy. The GDP figure for 2020-21 released on Monday showed a negative growth of 7.3 per cent.
The Congress has been creating a noise about the slow vaccination drive over the past few days. The party has also raised questions about private hospitals getting supplies while government facilities being forced to down shutters.
They also alleged a scam in Karnataka where BJP youth wing chief and Lok Sabha MP Tejasvi Surya appealed to people through a newspaper advertisement to get vaccinated in a private hospital.
Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera had said that leaked audio conversations suggested Surya’s uncle and BJP legislator Ravi Subramanya got a commission of Rs 700 per dose from the hospital.
Karnataka Congress chief D.K. Shivakumar had tweeted: “Allegations against BJP MLA Ravi Subramanya of taking commission for vaccines is a serious one….”
