Congress chief Sonia Gandhi takes on Centre over 'vaccine shortage'; calls for cooperation

Speaking at a virtual meeting on Saturday, Congress president Sonia Gandhi accused the Union government of mismanaging the situation pertaining to COVID-19 vaccination. She was addressing a meeting of Congress-ruled state CMs and Ministers to review the efforts to fight the novel coronavirus including the availability of vaccines, access to medicines and ventilators. According to her, vaccines must be exported to other countries only after catering to Indians. While acknowledging that it is important for the opposition-ruled states to cooperate with the Centre, she accused the latter of allowing a shortage of vaccine doses in the country.

The Rae Bareli MP added, "Mass gatherings for elections and religious events have accelerated COVID-19 for which all of us are responsible to some extent. We need to accept this responsibility and keep the interest of the nation above our own. In our states, we need to take strict measures to ensure that the pandemic doesn't go out of control and ensuring testing at large scale, preparation of adequate facilities, setting up temporary measures. We must take all efforts to support those who face the brunt of reduced economic activity as the restrictions become harder and more stringent."

PM Modi announces 'Tika Utsav' 

Chairing a meeting of all CMs on Thursday, PM Modi announced that a special initiative- 'Tika Utsav' will be organised in all states from April 11 to 14 to ensure the maximum vaccination coverage of people aged above 45. He stressed that there should be zero vaccine wastage during the course of this campaign. Assuring that the Centre will make available a sufficient number of vaccine doses to all states, he exhorted them to achieve optimum utilization of the inoculation capacity.

In a veiled dig at states such as Maharashtra which demanded lowering of the age criteria for vaccination, the PM opined that his government's approach was similar to developed countries. Moreover, he added that the Union government had to prioritise certain groups of the population in accordance with the availability of vaccine doses. While a total of 8,63,33,724 persons have been inoculated in Maharashtra so far, 1,15,49,108 of them have received the second dose of the vaccine too.