Pvt hospitals procured more vaccines than AAP govt in Delhi: BJP’s Sambit Patra

Stepping up its attack on the AAP government in Delhi over Covid management, the BJP on Thursday asked it to come clean on the arrangements it made to procure vaccines and set up oxygen plants, and alleged that private hospitals in Delhi have procured more Covid vaccines than the government.

Rejecting the Delhi government’s claims on its inoculation programme and on ramping up oxygen production in the city, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said the AAP government has directly procured over 8.17 lakh doses while private hospitals have bought over 9.04 lakh doses.

Patra also accused the government of “politicising” the issue of vaccine procurement by the Centre in order to deflect attention from its own failures in procuring vaccines.

“Nearly 46 lakh free vaccines were supplied by the Centre to Delhi. Private hospitals, for their part, procured about 9 lakh doses of vaccine while the Delhi government could manage just a little over 8 lakh… Only 13 per cent of the people who are vaccinated in the capital have got their vaccine from the state government,” Patra said. He sought details of the order for Sputnik vaccine from Russia by the Delhi government.

The BJP and the AAP have been involved in a public spat over the handling of the second wave of the pandemic. While the state government has alleged that the Centre’s oxygen supply was inadequate, the Centre has sought an audit of the oxygen supplied to the state.

Patra said that while Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal does daily press conferences for his “politics” and engages in a battle of “one-upmanship”, the fact is that his government has on its own provided for only 13 per cent of the total vaccination done in the national capital so far.

The BJP leader also accused Kejriwal of spreading misinformation over his demand that the Centre should procure vaccines for children as soon as possible after pharma giant Pfizer claimed that its jab has been proved suitable for everyone over 12 years of age.

Patra said that as of now, nowhere in the world are children being vaccinated.

“We cannot use children as guinea pigs. Until the time proper vaccine trials are properly conducted, we will not allow children to be made scapegoats… Kejriwal should not drag them into his politics,” the BJP spokesperson said.