Health Min answers Manmohan Singh's COVID letter to PM; slams Congress & Covaxin politics

Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Monday responded sharply to former PM Manmohan Singh's five-point suggestion letter to PM Narendra Modi on tackling the COVID-19 crisis. In response to Dr Manmohan Singh, Dr Harsh Vardhan said history would be kinder to him if his own party had followed his advice in such extraordinary times, which sounds like it also echoes Dr Manmohan Singh's famous remark when he was demitting the PM's office, regarding how history would be kinder to him.

He added that Congress leaders’ stand on the Coronavirus pandemic and the indigenously manufactured vaccines has been so negative that it has led to below-average coverage vaccination of senior citizens in the country. “While you understand the importance of vaccination…people in responsible positions in your party as well as in state governments formed by the Congress do not seem to share your view,” Vardhan wrote.

“Many of you party members and state leaders have taken extraordinary interest in spreading falsehoods regarding the efficacy of the vaccines fuelling hesitancy and playing with the lives of countrymen.”

Dr Vardhan said that the same states have become the biggest contributors in the second wave of the COVID-19 infection. “The test positivity ratio in Congress-ruled states is alarmingly high and they could too benefit from your consent and wisdom,” he added.

The Minister claimed Dr Manmohan Singh’s letter to PM Modi was full of factual inaccuracies as the Centre had already taken the steps suggested by him.

Manmohan Singh's 5-point letter to PM Modi

Dr Singh’s letter came a day after the Congress Working Committee's (CWC), at a meeting chaired by party chief Sonia Gandhi, described the Modi government’s COVID-19 response as “colossal mismanagement” and accused the Prime Minister of being busy campaigning, instead of coordinating the war against the pandemic.

“The key to our fight against Covid-19 must be ramping up the vaccination effort. We must resist the temptation to look at the absolute numbers being vaccinated, and focus instead on the percentage of the population vaccinated,” Singh said in his letter to PM Modi on Sunday.

He asked the Prime Minister to publicise firm orders for vaccines with pharma companies for the next six months and inform the states about the expected supply based on a transparent formula. He also asked PM Modi to invoke the compulsory licensing provisions in the law so that a maximum number of companies could produce vaccines.