Union minister and senior BJP leader Prakash Javadekar onFriday criticized the Congress government in Punjab for allegedly making a profitby selling Covid vaccines to private hospitals in the state.
"The whole of Punjab is affected by coronavirus, butthe vaccination drive is mismanaged. For the last six months, infighting is goingon in Punjab Congress. The entire state government is in Delhi for the lastthree-four days. Who will take care of Punjab? On top of this, there are newsreports that the Congress government in Punjab is profiteering from Covidvaccines by selling them to private hospitals." Javadekar alleged.
The minister added that ignoring the people of Punjab forinternal politics is the biggest sin of the Congress party.
He also said that former Congress chief Rahul Gandhishould look after Punjab first, instead of lecturing others on Covidmanagement.
Javadekar pointed out that reports have come out that thePunjab government has been provided more than 1.40 lakh doses of Covaxin at Rs400, which the Congress government allegedly sold to 20 private hospitals for Rs1,000.
"Till today, the Central government had provided 22crore doses of Covid vaccine free of cost to the states. But they keep changingtheir stand. First, they demanded decentralized vaccine procurement, now theyare demanding to centralize the whole process. They should focus on theirmanagement to serve the people," Javadekar said.
On Thursday, Union Minister of State for Finance andCorporate Affairs, Anurag Thakur, had questioned the lack of transparency andaccountability of the Punjab government on the vaccine issue.
"The Punjab government has shown a careless andcallous attitude towards the people of the state by charging four times abovethe basic price of procurement. Why should an individual pay over Rs 3,120 fortwo doses when the Centre is providing free vaccines to the stategovernment," Thakur asked?
"Punjab government is hand in glove with the privatehospitals. They are creating a false narrative about vaccine scarcity andensuring the lack of proper vaccination facilities at government hospitals. Whyshould a single dose of the vaccine cost Rs 1,560 at a private hospital? Punjabgovernment profits while the poor pay this pandemic premium on vaccines,"he had said.