Sena leader’s jibe at minister Prasad on govt’s move over foreign Covid vaccines

Shiv Sena’s Priyanka Chaturvedi said Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad’s reaction to Rahul Gandhi’s letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the alleged shortage of Covid-19 vaccines in the country was ‘embarrassing’.

Shiv Sena leader Priyanka Chaturvedi on Tuesday took a jibe at Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad for his reaction to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi raising the issue of the alleged shortage of Covid-19 vaccines even as she welcomed the Centre’s move to fast-track approvals for foreign-made shots against the coronavirus disease that have been granted emergency use authorisation (EUA) in other countries.

File Photo:Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi (Photo by Santosh Kumar/ Hindustan Times)

“Welcome move. An embarrassing moment for Ravi Shankar Prasad ji,” Chaturvedi tweeted on Tuesday evening.

“Also, for all those cabinet ministers screeching, politicising and tweeting that there is no vaccine shortage at all, I offer my sympathies. Especially Rail Minister, Textile Minister and Environment Minister,” the Sena MP posted in a subsequent tweet, referring to Piyush Goyal, Smriti Irani and Prakash Javadekar respectively.

Chaturvedi was referring to Prasad’s attack on Rahul Gandhi for writing a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging the Prime Minister to allow states to have a greater say in the procurement and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines. The Union law minister last Friday called Gandhi a “failed part-time politician,” accusing him of “lobbying for pharma companies by asking for arbitrary approvals for foreign vaccines.”

Priyanka Chaturvedi has been quite vocal over the last few days over the alleged shortage of Covid-19 vaccine doses in the country, especially in her home state of Maharashtra, whose caseload is the highest among all states and Union territories.

On Monday, she tweeted after the clearance of Russia’s Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine. “Hope Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad Ji is not contesting this decision in the court or asking for CBI investigation for corruption because he had a problem with the advise when it came from the opposition,” she wrote.

Sputnik V, once approved, will be the third Covid-19 vaccine to be used in India. The other two vaccines are the one developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca, which is being manufactured in India as Covishield, and Covaxin, the country’s first homemade vaccine against the coronavirus disease. Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII) is manufacturing Covishield, while Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech International Limited has developed Covaxin.