Congress Mp from Thiruvananthapuram Shashi Tharoor, who is currently in hospital after testing positive for coronavirus in April, this morning appealed the government to make vaccination from all the Indians universally. In a video message, the leader questioned Centre’s pace of vaccination drive and wondered how the Centre will inoculate all Indians by December this year, a claim that has been reiterated by many union leaders.
“As you can see, I am in bed, suffering the complications of a long Covid infection. I just want to say to everybody… having seen the government statement that everybody will be vaccinated by (the) end of December, while seeing the availability of vaccines or lack there of of the vaccines, I wonder how the government is going to get there.”
“I support the Indian National Congress’s campaign for a massive change in the government’s policy to permit universal vaccination of all Indians within the promised deadline of December, and to do so free of cost,” Mr Tharoor underlined today.
Slamming the government for the differential vaccine pricing, which has emerged as a contentious issue, the 65-year-old leader further said: “It is unacceptable that this government should be demanding that states, private hospitals and others compete in some sort of market free for all to buy vaccines at different prices, extortionate prices in some cases, when the central government has an arrangement to buy vaccines at affordable prices and give them to the public for free. That was the policy at the beginning of the vaccination drive. “
“Let us have a universal, free vaccination policy to save the nation from Covid. I have suffered a lot. I don’t want my fellow citizens to suffer even a fraction of what I have done, and certainly not to do worse than me as so many have as the tragedy unfolded in the country,” he said while referring to the devastating second Covid wave, which is affecting lakhs every day.
The country reported 1,32,788 new Covid cases and 3,207 deaths in the last 24 hours. With 2,31,456 discharges, now there are 17,93,645 active cases in the country.
