Opposition Leaders Demand Free Vaccination for All

NEW DELHI, May 12: Top leaders of twelve opposition parties including the Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party and left parties and some half-a-dozen non-BJP chief ministers have shot off a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to put across nine demands including a free Covid-19 vaccination campaign.

They also asked the PM to halt the Central Vista project and instead divert the money to buy oxygen and vaccines.

In the letter, the leaders argued that they have “repeatedly in the past” drawn the PM’s attention to the measures, they think, are “absolutely imperative” for the Central government to undertake and implement.”

“Unfortunately, your government has either ignored or refused all these suggestions. This only compounded the situation to reach such an apocalyptic human tragedy,” the letter read.

The letter, signed by the Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi, the NCP chief Sharad Pawar, the CPIM general secretary Sitaram Yechury, the former PM HD Deve Gowda, the chief ministers of Maharashtra Uddhav Thackeray, West Bengal Mamata Banerjee, Tamil Nadu MK Stalin, Jharkhand Hemant Soren, and others, said, “Procure vaccines centrally from all available sources – global and domestic” and “immediately begin a free, universal mass vaccination campaign across the country. Invoke compulsory licensing to expand domestic vaccine production. Spend budgetary allocation of Rs. 35,000 crores for the vaccines.” The letter has also been signed by JKPA leader Farooq Abdullah, SP’s Akhilesh Yadav, CPI’s D Raja and Tejaswi Yadav of RJD.

It asked for stopping the Central Vista construction and demanded that all money held in the unaccounted private trust fund, PM Cares must be released to buy more vaccines, Oxygen and medical equipment required.

The letter reiterated that all jobless people should be given at least ₹6000 per month and there must be free distribution of food grains to the needy as over one crore tonnes of food grains are currently rotting in central godowns.

The letter, however, also invoked the farm law issues and reiterated that the three farm laws have to be repealed to “protect lakhs of our annadatas becoming victims of the pandemic so that they can continue to produce food to feed the Indian people.”

All these demands have been repeatedly raised by the Opposition parties in the last few months. The government, however, recently defended the Central Vista project and argued that its expenses would be carried out over a few years. The Centre has also told the Delhi High Court that the PIL filed in the court demanding stoppage of the Central Vista project was only “abuse of the process of law.”

All criticism about the government’s alleged lack of preparedness had also been dismissed by the BJP leaders as attempt to create panic among the people and weaken the centre’s efforts to fight against the pandemic.

(Manas Dasgupta)