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History shall be kind to you if Cong took your advice: Harsh Vardhan to Manmohan
Responding to the former PM’s letter to PM Modi, the Union health minister said it is “saddening” that while the former prime minister understands the importance of vaccination as an important weapon in combating Covid-19, people in his party “do not seem to share his views”
Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Monday hit back at the Congress for “not being grateful towards the scientific community and vaccine manufacturers for innovating under trying circumstances and empowering the world with vaccines’’. Harsh Vardhan’s attack came in response to former prime minister Manmohan Singh’s letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi a day ago, suggesting ways to tackle the vaccination shortage in the country.
“History shall be kinder to you Dr Manmohan Singh Ji if your offer of constructive cooperation and valuable advice was followed by your Congress leaders as well in such extraordinary times,” Harsh Vardhan said in a tweet attaching his response.
In his three-page letter, accusing the Congress and its state governments of spreading lies and rumours about the efficacy of vaccines produced in India, he said it is “saddening” that while the former prime minister understands the importance of vaccination as an important weapon in combating Covid-19, people in his party “do not seem to share his views”.
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He further alleged that “irresponsible public pronouncements made by Congress have resulted in a below national average vaccination coverage of senior citizens and even frontline workers in some of the states where Congress is in power. “These states also have become the big contributors in the second-wave of Covid-19 infections,” the minister added.
Finding “factual inaccuracies” in Singh’s letter, he said that those who helped him draft the same have done a “great disservice by misleading” him regarding the information which is already in the public domain. He clarified that the decision regarding fast-tracking foreign-made vaccines that have been approved by credible authorities had been taken before his suggestion.
In his five-point letter to the PM, Singh said, “The key to our fight against Covid-19 must be ramping up the vaccination effort. We must resist the temptation to look at the absolute numbers being vaccinated, and focus instead on the percentage of the population vaccinated.”
The former Prime Minister had urged the government to reveal the system of distribution of vaccines among states in a transparent way. Singh’s letter followed the Congress Working Committee meeting that described the Modi-led government’s pandemic strategy as a “colossal mismanagement”.
