Jharkhand health minister Banna Gupta on Thursday accused the Narendra Modi-led Centre of being prejudiced against the people of Jharkhand and politicising the distribution of vaccine among states for the mass immunisation programme set to begin from May 1.

“The Centre has announced vaccination for all citizens in the age bracket of 18 years to 44 years from May 1, but the distribution process of vaccine is marred by political vendetta,” Gupta said addressing media persons in Ranchi. “We will not get the required vaccine doses until May 15,” he added.

The health minister claimed that the state demanded 25 lakh doses each of Covaxin and Covishield for the upcoming immunisation programme, but vaccine manufacturers refused to provide the required doses on time citing an advance booking of 12 crore doses by the Centre.

“How will a developing state like Jharkhand vaccinate the 1.57 crore beneficiaries in this category if the Centre does not allow us to procure the doses that we require?” Gupta asked.

The state, he said, has already set up 2229 vaccination centres for the immunisation programme, but the process of vaccination may get affected due to unavailability of sufficient doses.

While residents of the state could register for vaccination through the government website and Co-Win 2.0 app in Jharkhand on Thursday, the app showed that there were no vaccination centres in Ranchi open for scheduling jabs as of now. The website only displayed vaccination centres open for beneficiaries above the age of 44 years.

A visibly infuriated Gupta also slammed the Centre for its alleged "step-brotherly approach" towards Jharkhand while providing life-saving drugs for treatment of Covid patients. The state, he said, has 2,500 doses of remdesivir at present and has sought 2,000 extra doses from Assam.

“We need at least 4,000 doses of remdesivir injection every day, but the Centre has provided only 20,000 doses to us in the past 10 days. Does the Centre want people of Jharkhand to die without treatment?” Gupta asked.

Gupta sought the support of other states in helping Jharkhand fight the worst-ever wave of Covid-19, which has claimed several hundred lives and infected almost 1 lakh people in hardly a month. Jharkhand, he said, was providing medical oxygen to all the states irrespective of the party in power there, but the Centre was not following the same approach towards non-BJP ruled states.

During the annual Budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman had allocated Rs 35,000 crore for vaccination, but the Centre was still demanding money from states for vaccines, Gupta alleged, claiming that the Centre’s policies were mounting added pressure on the states.