Lashing out at SAD and AAP for their theatrics, Punjab Health and Family Welfare Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu on Monday asked them to stage their dharnas outside the residence of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi whose government was discriminating against Punjab.
“If you have guts and courage, better gherao the Prime Minister’s house and not waste my and your time here,” he said.
Referring to the dharnas staged by the two parties outside his residence on Sunday and on Monday, Sidhu said that the two parties were fighting a battle for survival and were desperately competing to outdo each other. “Both the parties have lost their relevance in the State and Mohali in particular, where the Akali Dal drew a complete blank in the recently concluded urban bodies’ elections,” he said.
On the issue of supplying vaccines to the private hospitals, the Minister said that it was a government decision taken in good faith to make vaccines available and accessible to all those who needed it and could afford it but were not fulfilling the
eligibility criteria according to the Government of India norms, particularly
thousands of students who needed to go abroad but could not go as they were not vaccinated.
Questioning the Centre’s guidelines, he said that earlier it had capped the charges to be taken by the private hospitals as maximum of Rs 100, but now the Centre has left it open to the private hospitals to charge as much as they want.
Asserting that the Akalis and AAP should spend their time, energies, and resources in Delhi and prevail upon the Central Government to not to discriminate with Punjab just because it is a Congress government, he said: “I know you cannot do that as Sukhbir and other Akalis are too scared of Modi and AAP and Kejriwal are the ‘B’ team of the BJP.”
Underlining that Punjab was grossly discriminated against both in terms of vaccines and oxygen, the Minister said that against the order for 30 lakh Covishield vaccine placed by the State with the Serum Institute of India, only 4.29 lakh doses were provided. “Apart from paying Rs 18.27 crore for 5.43 lakh vaccine doses, the State Government has paid Rs 22.88 crore as advance for procurement of 6.88 lakh vaccine doses which are yet to be received,” he said.
He also asked the opposition parties as to why they were not questioning the dual price policy for vaccine – Rs 150 for Centre and Rs 300 for the State Governments, which even the Supreme Court of India had questioned.
The Minister pointed out that the BJP-ruled states were having huge vaccine supplies with them and on top of the list was Uttar Pradesh with 25 lakh vaccine doses in their stock followed by Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. In strong contrast, the Centre never gave Punjab its due allocation of vaccines.
Sidhu advised the Akali and AAP leaders, that if they were really concerned about Punjab and the Punjabis, they should raise the matter with the government of India instead of wasting their and his time in Punjab.