Don’t mislead people over Covid-19: Nadda
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president JP Nadda on Tuesday wrote a letter to his Congress counterpart, Sonia Gandhi, asking her and the party including its chief ministers to stop “misleading people, creating false panic” over the Covid-19 pandemic and contradictory stands on the vaccination policy.
The letter came a day after the Congress Working Committee on Monday passed a resolution calling the second Covid-19 wave a “grave calamity and direct consequence of the Modi government’s indifference, insensitivity, and incompetence.”
Nadda, in his four-page response to Gandhi, accused Congress leaders of contributing to vaccine hesitancy. “Vaccine that is made in India should be a matter of national pride. Instead, Congress leaders tried to ridicule it and create doubts in the minds of people. Even the chief ministers belonging to your party indulged in such antics. In a nation that has almost no recent history of vaccine hesitancy, your party has the dubious record of trying to actively create [it], that too, in the middle of a once-in-a-century pandemic,” the letter said. “The Congress Working Committee talks about the Modi government ‘abdicating’ its responsibility on vaccination. Is there so much of a communication gap between the Congress party and the states it shares powers in? In April itself, topmost Congress leaders were calling for decentralisation of vaccination.” The drug regulator’s approval of Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin came in for criticism from various quarters because it was done without even interim data being made available. The data, available several months on, did show the vaccine to be highly effective.
Nadda defended the vaccination policy and said it had already ensured considerable coverage in priority groups by providing at least 160 million vaccines to states in the first two phases.
Nadda said that BJP ruled states have announced their resolve to help the poor and underprivileged by providing vaccines for free. “I am sure that Congress governments in various states also feel strongly for the poor, can they also come out with a similar decision to provide vaccines for free?” Punjab , Rajasthan, and Chattisgarh, all governed by Congress administrations have announced that they will provide vaccines free to anyone in the 18-44 years age group. Those over the age of 45 are already covered by the Union government’s Phase 2.
Nadda accused the Congress of politicising the pandemic and the vaccination policy. He added that in this fight against the pandemic, the conduct of the topmost Congress leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, will be remembered for “duplicity and pettiness.” “Your party, under your leadership, is doing no favours to itself by opposing lockdowns and then demanding for the same, ignoring the Centre’s advisories on the second wave of Covid and then saying they did not get any information, holding massive election rallies in Kerala causing a spike in Covid cases while grandstanding about the election rallies elsewhere, supporting protests but speaking about following Covid guidelines,” the letter said.
There was no immediate response from the Congress.