Rahul Gandhi labels SII's Adar Poonawalla as 'Modi's friend'; adds crony angle to vaccines

After accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Central government of working only for businessmen like Mukesh Ambani and Adani for years, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday took to his Twitter handle and alleged 'vaccine discrimination' across the country. While sharing the Serum Institute of India (SII) media statement, Rahul Gandhi in a tweet targetted SII's Adar Poonawalla and said that the pandemic crisis is an opportunity for the Prime Minister's friends. He wrote, "Disaster of the country is an opportunity for PM Modi's friends. The injustice of central government."

Rahul Gandhi calls SII's Adar Poonawalla PM Modi's friend

In his latest attack on PM Modi, the Congress leader has now labelled Adar Poonawalla as "Modi's friend". By attaching Serum Institute of India's COVID vaccine rates for the state government and private hospitals announced by the company, Rahul Gandhi claimed that the Centre is supporting a few companies amid the pandemic to "earn profits". 

Read the circular issued by SII here:

Prior to this, Rahul Gandhi had attacked PM Modi with his old allegation of wanting to sell the country to a few industrialists. However, this time, he has added Adar Poonawalla to the Adani-Ambani list. These remarks from Rahul Gandhi came after the central government liberalized the sale of the COVID vaccine in phase 3 of the vaccination drive to boost the inoculation process, making it available for all from May 1 and paving the way for the states and private stakeholders to purchase and distribute. 

India is currently running the largest vaccination drive with a total of over 13 crore doses of COVID-19 vaccine administered as of Monday and 17.5 million people fully vaccinated. The government has additionally extended support to the manufacturers to ramp up the production and plans to invite new players at the domestic and international levels.

COVID-19 situation in India

As the world continues to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic, India so far has recorded over 1,56,16,130 positive cases, out of which, 1,32,76,039 have successfully recovered, while 1,82,553 have died. As per the latest reports from MoHFW, in the past 24 hours, 2,95,041 new cases, 1,67,457 fresh recoveries and 2,023 deaths have been reported. Currently, the total number of active cases in the country is 21,57,538. Rahul Gandhi is himself currently stricken by COVID.

(Image: PTI, Twitter- Adar Poonawalla, SII)