Devendra Fadnavis’s 22-year-old kin gets vaccine, stirs row

Congress leader Mr Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday attacked the Centre yet again, this time calling its vaccine strategy one of “discrimination, not distribution”. He questioned why 18 to 45-year-olds will not get free vaccine. “No free vaccines for 1845 yr olds. Middlemen brought in without price controls. No vaccine guarantee for weaker sections. GOI’s Vaccine Discrimination - Not Distribution Strategy,” he said in a tweet. His attack comes a day after the Centre announced the “liberalised and accelerated phase 3 strategy” of Covid-19 vaccination that will come into force on May 1 and will allow the entire population above the age 0f 18 years to get vaccinated.

Congress leader Mr P Chidambaram also slammed the government over its revised vaccine policy. Mr. Chidambaram has stated that the new vaccine policy is “heartless” and “lacks vision”. He said that the states should get the vaccine at the same rates at which the Centre is getting them. He slammed the Centre for not adding any provision of compulsory licensing to its vaccine policy in order to help domestic vaccine manufacturers. He further added, “By liberalising the price of vaccine & not fixing a price for states at the same rate as available to Union Government, the government is paving the way to unhealthy price bidding & profiteering. States with limited resources will be at a considerable disadvantage.” He claimed, “States already way down by shrinking GST revenues, lower tax devolution, reduced grants-in-aid & increased borrowing would’ve to bear this added burden. Meanwhile, nobody knows where the thousands of crores of rupees collected under PM CARES being deployed,”