Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh on January 20 called the Union Minister for State for Information and Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, a “liar” in response to the Minister sharing Pfizer CEO’s video and accusing Congress leaders of pushing the “case of foreign vaccines during COVID”.
Attaching a video of Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla’s encounter with a Rebel News journalist in Davos, Mr. Chandrasekhar alleged on Twitter the U.S.-based pharmaceutical giant tried to bully the Central Government into accepting conditions of indemnity and the “Congress trio” of Rahul Gandhi, P. Chidamabaram and Jairam Ramesh kept pushing the “case of foreign vaccines during COVID-19”.
Responding, Mr. Ramesh said, “This is total bullshit Mr. Minister. Let not your ambition to climb the greasy pole make you more of a liar than you are.”
On December 27, 2021, Mr. Chidambaram had tweeted that “people are surprised” that only three vaccines have been made available in India — Covishield, Covaxin and Sputnik.
“Of the three, you can write off Sputnik because only a small quantity was imported in the initial days,” Congress veteran Mr. Chidambaram wrote.
The Pfizer CEO encountered a series of tough questions about the efficacy of its COVID vaccine on the sidelines of the ongoing World Economic Forum meeting, but he repeatedly ignored the queries and a video on it has gone viral.
Among the questions, he asked the CEO why the manufacturer kept the fact secret that its vaccine did not stop transmission of the virus. The Pfizer chief time and again ducked these questions, only to say “Thank you very much” and “Have a nice day”.
In the video, the journalist was heard saying, “You [Pfizer] said it was 100% effective, then 90%, then 80%, then 70%, but we now know that the vaccines do not stop transmission. Why do you keep that secret?”
(With ANI inputs)
