AICC national spokesperson Sravan Dasoju criticised Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao for his alleged negligent attitude towards curtailing the deadly virus spread in the state and asked why the rich Telangana state is so poor in Covid-19 vaccination. Senior Congress leader, while referring to the Government of India’s Covid-19 vaccination data, questioned why Telangana restricted itself to administer just nine lakh doses of vaccine at a time when the rest of the states are much ahead of us in the vaccination drive. 

He said, “Eight states including Kerala (25,58,544 doses), Madhya Pradesh (26,66,064 doses), Karnataka (28,46,344 doses), West Bengal (41,25,209 doses), Gujarat (41,86,828 doses), Uttar Pradesh (46,53,705 doses), Maharashtra (47,43,837 doses), and Rajasthan (47,52,984 doses) account for 60% of the cumulative five crore doses given so far in India. But why has Telangana given just 9,93,030 doses so far? Moreover, vaccination for healthcare workers at 62% and frontline workers at 42.7% is also very poor in Telangana. KCR and KTR have always been saying that they are so progressive, rich, and advanced state in all aspects. Where has that advancement gone in Covid-19 vaccination?”

While addressing the media on Wednesday, Dr Sravan slammed the government for not arranging proactive Covid-19 vaccination facilities. He pointed out that the government was very keen on running ‘Bar and Beer’ shops to squeeze money from the people and allowing movie theatres with 100% capacity despite a huge risk looming in the form of the second wave of coronavirus.

Mounting a spirited attack against the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD) Bill 2021 in the Upper House of Parliament on Wednesday, Congress Rajya Sabha MP from West Bengal Abhishek Manu Singhvi called it an “unconstitutional bill” and an act of “coercive federalism” by the Central government.

“This is the most unconstitutional bill that has ever been introduced in the history of this house and this goes against the fundamental principle of federalism. This is not about the Aam Aadmi Party, the TMC or the Congress; this is about upholding the principles of federalism,” Dr Singhvi said while debating the GNCTD Bill 2021 in the Rajya Sabha.

The Central government introduced the GNCTD Amendment Bill 2021 in the Parliament earlier this week, aiming to change the “working” of the Delhi government. The bill was passed by the Lok Sabha on Monday. This bill was then taken up for discussion in the Rajya Sabha today. This bill, as many opposition parties claim, will vest more powers in the hands of the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi than the elected government.

Dr Singhvi, during the debate on the bill in the Upper House of the Parliament, said, “It is an attempt to make the Delhi government a puppet in the hands of the LG of Delhi. Through this bill, even for an executive decision made by the elected government, it would need the permission of the LG of Delhi, making the Delhi government impotent.”

Dr Singhvi, while arguing for his case in Parliament, also reminded the Treasury bench of the ‘magnanimity’ of former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his concern for federal structure. He also said that this bill is against the judgement of the Supreme Court’s five-judge constitutional bench that had upheld the powers of the elected government over the LG of Delhi.

The Andhra Pradesh government has decided to speed up the Covid-19 vaccination drive, targeting to complete vaccination for one crore population in the next 4-5 weeks. During the review meeting held on the Covid-19 vaccination plan at the camp office here on Wednesday, Chief Minister Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy directed officials to start the vaccination process in urban areas from March 29 (Monday). He directed to similarly take up as a pilot project in rural areas, limiting to two villages per day in each mandal by working four days a week.

Interacting with officials, the Chief Minister said that there are only six days left in the election process of Mandal Parishad Territorial Constituency (MPTC) and Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituency (ZPTC) polls and if the elections wind up, the efforts can be focused on vaccination. He said it was quite uncertain when the polls would be over and that is leaving the workforce in dilemma and causing a lot of anguish. He directed officials to expedite the vaccination process and take it up “like a yagna to save people’s lives”.

The Chief Minister instructed the officials to implement the vaccination drive in the villages as a full-fledged activity involving village, ward secretariats, volunteers, Asha workers, and health workers. He suggested the officials to take up awareness campaigns, ensuring that all the people get vaccinated without any fear.

The CM also emphasised on Village Doctor Concept and directed the authorities to implement it at the earliest possible. He ordered the authorities to make sure that there is no shortage of doctors in PHCs, that each mandal should have two PHCs, and each PHC should have two physicians. Similarly, each mandal should have two 104 vehicles with one doctor in each vehicle, he said, adding that there should be six doctors in every mandal visiting every village thrice every month.

He directed to hire doctors as per requirement and told the finance department officials not to be negligent in disbursing the required funds. The officials said 3.97 lakh health and frontline workers, 59.08 lakh people who are either over the age of 60 or above 45 with comorbidities, are yet to be vaccinated. They said the Central government has decided to provide the vaccine to all those over the age of 45 from 1 April.

The CM directed the officials to make all necessary arrangements to expedite the process and complete vaccination for one crore population. In regard to this, he told the officials to carry out vaccinations by selecting two villages each day and covering eight villages per week across the state.

Andhra Pradesh opposition TDP official spokesman Pilli Manikya Rao has asserted that Chief Minister Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy and his party leaders had no right to ask for votes in the Tirupati Lok Sabha bypolls, since they had totally betrayed Andhra Pradesh on the promise of special category status. Rao said that it was after CM Jagan promised to bring special status from the Centre that Andhra Pradesh voters gave 22 out of the total 25 MP seats in the 2019 elections. Once in CM’s chair, Jagan Reddy simply forgot about his promise and betrayed the aspirations of the people altogether.

In a statement here, the TDP leader asked with what face YCP leaders were now coming before the AP voters to seek their support for victory in Tirupati. Though the Central government was repeatedly rejecting the demand for special status, the Chief Minister was maintaining an enigmatic silence. If Jagan Reddy continued his indifference in this regard without questioning the Centre, the people would have to think that he was more worried about saving himself from his CBI cases.

Manikya Rao said that it was Jagan Reddy alone who raised a lot of hopes among people of Andhra Pradesh, saying that industries and jobs would come if the state would get special status. But now, the Chief Minister has fallen silent on the promises made to the state’s people and thus pushing the state into a historic crisis.

NEW DELHI: The Parliament on Wednesday passed Finance Bill 2021, which gives effect to the financial proposals of the central government for the financial year 2021-22. The bill was passed by Rajya Sabha on Wednesday, a day after it was approved by the Lok Sabha. Finance Minister Nirmala accused the Congress-led UPA government of having “mismanaged the economy”. She noted that the Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) have declined to Rs 8.99 lakh crore as of March 2020. “Things were a mess and the economy was mismanaged under the tenure of UPA. As of now, NPAs have declined to Rs 8.99 lakh crore as of March 2020,” she said.

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Wednesday directed the Mumbai Police to give an advance notice of three days to Republic TV’s editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami if it wanted to arrest him in the Television Rating Point (TRP) scam case. A bench of Justices SS Shinde and Manish Pitale also dismissed the submission of state counsel Deepak Thakre that Arnab Goswami had to face the investigation and could not claim any special status. The bench noted the police had been investigating the case for three months now and was yet to name Arnab as an accused in the case.