The Opposition on Thursday tore into the Narendra Modi government during a Lok Sabha debate for the mishandling of the second Covid wave and asked what measures were being taken to tackle a possible third surge that could be fuelled by the omicron variant.

“When will all adults of the country be fully vaccinated? What is the government’s policy to vaccinate and save children? What about providing booster shots to health workers now that the omicron threat looms?” AMIM member Asaduddin Owaisi asked.

“Had PM Modi taken better measures, the country wouldn’t have suffered during the second wave,” he said.

The Congress’s Adhir Chowdhury, said the government must accept that it had failed to handle the second wave earlier this year and asked what was the plan to tackle omicron. “You have to accept that last time was a great failure. Had it not been so, so many people wouldn’t have died,” he said. Adhir asked why the government started screening international passengers at airports only on December 1 when the WHO had declared omicron a variant of concern on November 26.

The Shiv Sena’s Vinayak Raut accused the Centre of having a step-motherly attitude in vaccine allocation, preferring BJP-ruled states.

Supriya Sule of the NCP said: “Why can’t we complete the second dose, which the

government has claimed would be done by end of December?”

The Congress’s Gaurav Gogoi pointed to massive job losses and price rise.