The Congress on Friday wondered why a credible national infrastructure to manage Covid wasn’t set up in the last 15 months and why India was grappling with shortages of everything — from oxygen to hospital beds and medicine.
“This government is defined by shortages, shortcomings, and short-sightedness,” said Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi, lamenting that the lack of preparedness brought India to such a situation that the second wave is now being described as the “worst in the world”.
Rahul Gandhi also blamed the Narendra Modi government for the crisis, arguing that deficient medical assistance, not Covid, was pushing the number of casualties. “Corona can cause fall in oxygen level. But it is oxygen shortage and lack of ICU beds which is causing many deaths. The Government of India, this is on you,” he tweeted.
Rahul also pointed at the government’s wrong priorities such as the Central Vista project at a time there were not even enough testing facilities, medicine and vaccines available to the people.
Arguing that advance planning and foresight could have prevented this alarming situation, Singhvi said: “The priorities of the Prime Minister and the home minister reflect that they have entirely become inefficient, incompetent, and indifferent towards the Covid crisis.
“Why did they relocate themselves to Bengal, despite the home ministry being the nodal agency for managing Covid? When a single person sitting inside the car is liable for punishment for not wearing mask, Shah was doing road shows in Bengal amid thousands of people without wearing a mask.”
Singhvi added: “The devastation has sparked outrage at the lack of preparation among officials who believed that the worst of the pandemic was over. Only two months ago, India was revelling in its success of reining in the spread of the virus…. Now it is reporting almost 3.5 lakh infections and 2,500 deaths a day. India currently stands at the first position in the world and is taking nine days to double the cases.”
Among the questions raised by Singhvi was the differential pricing of the vaccine.
“A vaccine is certainly a public good at the time of such an emergency. Under a declared disaster of the pandemic, why has been a differential pricing brought in place?”
He also asked: “Why is the government under reporting cases of infections and deaths? Why have the number of tests gone down in places like Delhi, which is hardly conducting 1 lakh tests per day? Why is it taking 3-5 days to get the report of a Covid test? Why is it taking as long as 6-8 hours for people to stand in the queue to get tested for Covid? Why has the Prime Minister not yet opened up on the PM CARES fund? When will he hold himself accountable for the money contributed by the citizens? When will he begin to really CARE?”
