Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Monday alleged that though the Narendra Modi government had failed to contain the pandemic it had managed to control “the truth of the pandemic” by manipulating the data regarding COVID-19.
“As in the case of employment and development, the government is not allowing the actual data about corona to reach the people. They may have not been able to control the pandemic but managed to control the truth about the pandemic,” Mr. Gandhi tweeted.
Ahead of the May 1 roll out of vaccination of every adult in the country, Mr. Gandhi, in a separate tweet, said “all citizens of the country should get vaccine for free” and India should not become “a victim of the BJP’s system”.
Speaking to the The Hindu , former Rajasthan Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot said the Centre failed to make State governments stakeholders in the fight against the second wave of COVID-19 and suggested that Prime Minister Modi convene an all party meeting to prepare a concrete roadmap.
Mr Pilot said the current crisis is the result of bad planning by the Centre and alleged that “after centralised decision-making during the first wave, it has left the States to fend for themselves as things spiralled out of control.”
He said the government of India needs to take blame for the on-going ‘chaos’, unavailability of oxygen and life-saving medicines and the lack of capacity building since October last year when COVID cases were coming down.
“They should introspect and think what is going on. Crematoriums are full, people are burning [bodies] on the road and what you see simply wrenches your heart... History will judge which leaders are spending tax payers’ money on advertisement and self-promotion as opposed to building capacities, getting medicines, hospital beds and oxygen beds for the sick,” Mr. Pilot said.
“For all these months, should we not have stockpiled all these vaccines in such quantities where we could have covered the entire country in a few weeks... This is a national crisis and we should have a stake holder approach where scientific inputs are taken. State governments should be brought on board in terms of deciding, allocating and combating,” he added.
Strongly arguing for a ‘one nation-one vaccine price’ fixed by the government instead of pharma companies, Mr. Pilot said, “If there is a clamour on May 1 and people don’t get it, it would not only create frustration and disappointment but can add to the prevailing sense of chaos.”
Published - April 26, 2021 01:01 pm IST
