Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi has decided that attacking Indian businessman is the best strategy to defeat Narendra Modi. After relentlessly accusing the Modi govt of working only for select ‘friends’ like Ambani and Adani, he has made Indian vaccine manufacturers the target of latest attack. After several attempts to diss India‘s indigenous COVID-19 vaccine Covaxin by Bharat Biotech, Rahul Gandhi is now after Adar Poonawala, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Serum Institute of India which is making Covishield, the Covid-19 vaccine from Oxford University-AstraZeneca.
After Adani-Ambani, now Adar
In the latest attack, Rahul Gandhi has labelled Adar Poonawalla as ‘Modi’s friend. In a tweet attaching SII’s vaccine rates for the state governments and private hospitals announced by the company earlier today, he implied that the Centre is supporting a few companies to ‘earn profits’.
आपदा देश की
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) April 21, 2021
अवसर मोदी मित्रों का
अन्याय केंद्र सरकार का!#VaccineDiscrimination pic.twitter.com/oOTC77AmkB
Prior to this, Rahul Gandhi attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi with his same old allegation of wanting to sell the country to a few industrialists. Only this time, he has added Adar Poonawalla to the Adani-Ambani list.
These remarks come after the central government liberalized the sale of Covid-19 vaccine in Phase 03 of the vaccination drive to boost the inoculation process.
Rahul Gandhi’s tweets reek of an attempt to allege that the Modi government has taken this step to help vaccine makers earn undue profits.
केंद्र सरकार की वैक्सीन रणनीति नोटबंदी से कम नहीं-
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) April 21, 2021
* आम जन लाइनों में लगेंगे
* धन, स्वास्थ्य व जान का नुक़सान झेलेंगे
* और अंत में सिर्फ़ कुछ उद्योगपतियों का फ़ायदा होगा।
At this juncture, we must specify that Adar Poonawalla in his latest interview to CNBC-TV18 categorically specified that the company is not here to take advantage of the pandemic and is suffering a loss of Rs 150 per dose. He added that SII has to pay 50% of the price to AstraZeneca as royalty.
CNBCTV18Exclusive | @adarpoonawalla, @SerumInstIndia says, we never want to take advantage of the pandemic, we are losing money at Rs 150/dose pic.twitter.com/vQrHR5NP9j
— CNBC-TV18 (@CNBCTV18Live) April 21, 2021
In a not-so-astonishing move, Rahul Gandhi and other Congress leaders have been campaigning for foreign vaccines. In fact, when the Russian made Covid-19 vaccine Sputnik-V was approved by the Modi govt, he had taken credit for the same.
“First they ignore you
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) April 14, 2021
then they laugh at you
then they fight you,
then you win.”#vaccine pic.twitter.com/FvfmTjJ7bl
Rahul Gandhi claims it was after the opposition put up a fight did the Centre make way for foreign-made vaccines and claimed the GOI appreciated the opposition for its suggestions.
एक सीधा-सा लेटर,
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) April 12, 2021
उसमें जन की बात…
विपक्ष के सुझाव अच्छे हैं! #SputnikV
It is interesting to note that while advocating costly American vaccines made by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, the opposition leaders were saying that let those who can afford to buy the costly foreign vaccines. But now when an Indian company is charging only the cost as the price, they are terming it as ‘Modi’s friend making profit’.
Vaccination drive in India
India is currently running the largest vaccination drive with a total of 13cr+ doses of Covid-19 vaccine administered as of Monday and 17.5M people fully vaccinated.
The government has additionally extended support to the manufacturers to ramp up the production and plans to invite new players at the domestic and international levels.