Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister first accused Narendra Modi of allowing open market sales of coronavirus vaccines after shipments made by him to foreign shores have depleted stocks in India. Then Mamata Banerjee shot off a letter to Modi hitting out at the Centre’s new vaccine policy. She termed it ‘hollow, without substance and a regrettable show’ of evasion of responsibility.
Banerjee was addressing an election rally Tuesday in Murshidabad district. She pointed out that the prime minister had exported vaccines to other countries to boost his image. However, non-BJP states like Maharashtra, Delhi, Rajasthan and West Bengal have struggled to get doses they required to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Yesterday (Monday) the PM said the medicine (vaccine) will be available in open market. Where is the open market, where is the availabilty? You have already shipped out the majority of stock to foreign destinations,” Banerjee told the gathering.
It should be stated here that the government had gifted Covid-19 vaccines to a number of countries including neighbouring nations and allowed export to many more including to Brazil and South Africa earlier this year.
Terming the Narendra Modi-led NDA government as one of ‘monumental incompetence’, Banerjee said, “We are facing a huge deficit in vaccines due to the faulty planning.”
“For six months the Central leadership did not bother to plan, they were busy plotting electoral battles in Bengal,” Banerjee alleged.
Later in the day, in her letter to the Centre, the West Bengal chief minister continued her criticism.
“I am informed that the central government has announced the much-delayed universal vaccine policy 19th April, 2021. It appears to be hollow, without substance and a regrettable show of evasion of responsibility by the central government at a time of crisis,” Banerjee said in the letter.
She also reminded the prime minister that she had in a letter dated February 24, 2021 requested his intervention to allow West Bengal purchase vaccines directly with state resources and give free vaccination to people of the state.
“No response was received from your end. Now when the number of cases in the second wave of COVID is spiralling, the Centre has chosen to tactically indulge in empty rhetoric and shy away from its responsibility for making available vaccines to the people of the country,” Banerjee wrote.
Banerjee pointed out that the announcement made Monday did not address major issues like ensuring quality, efficacy, stable flow of supply of required number of doses by the manufacturers and also the price at which the vaccines are to be purchased by the states.
“It is apprehended that the announced policy might lead to unscrupulous mechanisms in the market, including pricing of vaccines as it appears to be based on market prices which may put the common people under huge financial burden. More importantly, the supply would also become very erratic because the vaccine manufacturers are hardly prepared to scale up their production capacities to the desired levels to meet the nationwide demand,” Banerjee said in the letter.
“In sum, I would earnestly request you to kindly ensure a fair, transparent and credible vaccination policy addressing all the issues outlined above, which would enable the people of India to get vaccines urgently at affordable prices as per current scale as applicable,” Banerjee said.