Did Congress tweets create vaccine shortage? Shashi Tharoor's salvo at Hardeep Singh Puri

Imagine what would have happened if the Union government heeded Shashi Tharoor's advice in January, Hardeep Singh Puri said adding that if the Congress leaders can't join the nation in its fight, they can study their own statements and tweets to see where they went wrong.

Replying to Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri's jibe on social media in which he accused Congress MP Shashi Tharoor of fanning vaccine hesitancy among people, Tharoor on Thursday asked the Union minister whether his tweets have created the vaccine shortage in the country. Delinking his initial "doubts" over vaccines from the vaccine crisis in the country, Tharoor asked whether Congress tweets have also been responsible for the Centre not ordering adequate vaccines.

The BJP and the opposition are engaged in a bitter battle of wards over vaccination. (PTI)

"In short, when will the BJP Government take responsibility for its manifest failures of policy & management rather than pointing fingers at the Opposition in a vain attempt to divert attention from its own poor performance?" Tharoor tweeted.

'Masters of doublespeak', minister slams Cong over Covid-19 vaccine, Tharoor replies

The attack comes amid the ongoing tirade between the Centre and the opposition leaders in which the Congress for its 'failure' in managing the crisis, while BJP ministers are accusing the Congress of indulging in vaccine politics.

Shashi Tharoor, particularly, has been a target of minister Hardeep Singh Puri's attack as Puri wrote on Twitter, "Some of their leaders like Shashi Tharoor, to name one, are betraying an almost childish stubbornness in admitting their fault about India’s vaccine policy."

"After consistently airing doubts on vaccine efficacy, he has made a turnaround on 28 April 2021, but not without pointing out that he wasn’t wrong about being wrong! Imagine the situation if GoI had heeded his ‘advice’ & waited till two weeks back to start vaccine production," Puri tweeted sharing screenshots of Tharoor's earlier tweets.

After Bharat Biotech's Covaxin was cleared for restricted emergency use, several Congress leaders including Shashi Tharoor, Jairam Ramesh doubted the efficacy of the vaccine. After the phase 3 trial results of Covaxin were out, Tharoor congratulated the makers and said vaccine supplies should be scaled up to meet the need of the country.

Amid the peak of the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, accentuated by the shortage of medical resources and vaccines, as the Centre is facing severe criticism, BJP ministers, leaders, spokespersons are countering all allegations, one at a time.