West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the state was running out of Covid-19 vaccines and essential medicines such as Remdesivir, while cases were on the rise.
In the letter, Banerjee also took a veiled dig at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), saying people coming from other states for election campaigning “at the behest of some political parties” were responsible for the sharp rise in infections.
Citing her February 24 letter in which she sought the Centre’s permission to directly purchase vaccines and start a free vaccination campaign across Bengal, Banerjee wrote, “The state has not received the requisite clearance yet. In the meantime, the number of cases in the state has also started to rise sharply, particularly in view of coming of large number of outsiders to the state for election campaign and other purposes at the behest of some political parties.”
Stating that vaccination is of “top importance,” especially in Kolkata, where concentration of population is very high, Banerjee wrote, “Unfortunately for us, the supply of vaccines from the Government of India side is scarce and erratic, which has been negatively affecting our vaccination programmes…We have to vaccinate around 2.7 crore and we need 5.4 crore doses. We request for your urgent intervention to ensure that the state gets its requirement of vaccine doses fulfilled at the earliest.” “Instead of blaming the Prime Minister for the Covid crisis, the chief minister should have attended the meetings of chief ministers that the Centre convened,” Bengal BJP vice-president Jay Prakash Majumdar told HT