Telangana Congress leaders met Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan at the Raj Bhavan on Friday, and demanded universal, free vaccination against COVID-19, and requested her to convey their anguish over the non-serious approach of the Centre on vaccination to the President of India.
A delegation of Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president and Nalgonda MP N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, CLP leader Bhatti Vikramarka, TPCC working president and Malkajgiri MP A. Revanth Reddy; Bhongir MP Komatireddy Venkata Reddy and TPCC working president Ponnam Prabhakar met the Governor and submitted a memorandum
Later, addressing the media, Mr. Uttam Reddy criticised both the Centre and the State government, saying that they have miserably failed to control the pandemic. He said that the target of vaccinating all adults by December 31 would not be possible until one crore persons are vaccinated every day. At the present pace of vaccination, it would take three years to achieve the target.
Mr. Venkat Reddy demanded that journalists be identified as frontline warriors and financial help provided to them. He also wanted the government to come to the rescue of the children who lost their parents to COVID.
In the memorandum submitted to the Governor, the Congress leaders charged that the BJP government at the Centre was guilty of criminal mismanagement of COVID-19. “Modi government’s vaccination strategy has been a dangerous cocktail of blunders and bloopers. The government was derelict in its duty of ‘planning vaccination’ and has been reprehensibly oblivious to ‘procurement of vaccines’,” it stated.
As per the available information, the Centre and State governments have till date ordered only 39 crore vaccine doses for a total population of 140 crore. As per Government of India, it has administered 21.31 crore vaccine doses till May 31. But, only 4.45 crore Indians have received both the doses of vaccine, which is only 3.17% of the country’s population.
Till date, the Centre has exported 6.63 crore vaccine doses to other countries. This is the biggest disservice and the multiple pricing slabs for the vaccine fixed by the Modi government is another instance of profiteering from people’s misery, it added.