Senior Congress leader and former Minister Ponnala Lakshmaiah has said that if the scientific community had followed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s direction to clap and display lights to fight corona, the country would not have achieved vaccination of 100 crore people.
At a press conference here, he said unfortunately it was Mr. Modi taking the credit individually for the achievement of our scientists, pharma companies and health workers. He said during the Congress regime India achieved polio vaccination to all eligible people but the then Prime Ministers never claimed personal credit.
He said on March 27, 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO ) declared India a polio free country and since then no cases of polio had been reported. In 1995, following the Global Polio Eradication Initiative of the World Health Organization, India launched the Universal Immunization Programme (UIP) to cover all the districts of the country. The UIP became a part of ongoing child survival and safe motherhood programme in 1992. This was during the Congress government.
Manmohan Singh, during his Prime Ministership, didn't put posters of himself when a record 17 crore polio doses were given, he reminded and said Congress governments worked for people and not for self-promotion.
He said 679 crore corona vaccines had been given across the world so far and 106 countries had vaccinated the entire population of theirs. “However, despite being producers of the vaccine we could vaccinate 100 crore out of the 130 crore population.”
