Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has once again attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi questioning the discriminatory nature of his new corona vaccine policy and accusing his Government of promoting commercialisation of vaccines in an hour of crisis. Questioning why the Centre should be given to purchase vaccines for Rs 150 whereas the same vaccine should be sold to the States for Rs 400 Banerjee said New Delhi’s policy was not only discriminatory, anti-federal but it was also “anti-people, anti-poor andanti-federal.”
The Chief Minister while addressing an election rally at Tapan in North Bengal wondered “is it a joke that one government will buy it for Rs 150 and another will have to buy it for Rs 400 and the privatehospitals will get it for Rs 600… why is it being commercialized … isit being done to serve the interests of some business interest.” She asked “why the States will have to pay 167 percent more price than the Centre?” when they were doing the same work: that is to serve the common man.
The Chief Minister also wrote a strongly worded letter to the PrimeMinister raising her objections and saying that her Government would start vaccinisation of the people free of cost from first week of May.