Opposition leaders have questioned the Centre’s Covid-19 vaccine policy terming it as anti-people and discriminatory and demanded that the vaccination should be free for eligible citizens. While Congress president Sonia Gandhi wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi terming the policy as arbitrary and discriminatory and urged him to intervene immediately to reverse it, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee too, through a letter, urged the PM to make the vaccine free for all.
In her letter, Sonia alleged that the new vaccine policy implies that the central government has abdicated its responsibility of providing free vaccine to all Indians between 18 and 45 years of age.
“It is surprising that despite the harsh lessons of last year and the pain inflicted on our citizens, the Government continues to follow an arbitrary and discriminatory policy, which promises to exacerbate existing challenges,” she said in her letter. This is the second letter within 10 days that Sonia wrote to Modi with her demands amidst the pandemic.
“The policy implies that the Government of India has abdicated its responsibility to provide free vaccination for citizens between the age group of 18 and 45 years. This is complete abandonment of the Government’s responsibility towards our youth,” she said.
Noting that any reasonable person will agree on the benefit of a uniform price for vaccination, Sonia urged Modi to intervene immediately and “reverse this ill-considered decision”.
Terming the Centre’s new ‘liberalised and accelerated COVID-19 vaccination’ strategy is biased in favour of the market and against the interest of people, Banerjee said that manufacturers should not do business with vaccines at this hour of crisis.