A doctor prepares to administer Covaxin vaccine against the coronavirus at a vaccination center in Mumbai.
Congress on Tuesday criticised the Centre over PM Modi's posters as India achieved maximum Covid vaccination of 80 lakh in a day saying they didn't put posters of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh when the highest vaccination happened during the polio program.
"We are happy with the 80 lakh vaccinations yesterday. But the highest vaccination had happened during polio programs, 17 crore were done. It’s a different thing that Manmohan Singh didn’t put up posters of him back then," Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said in a presser.
Earlier in the day, former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi released the party's 'White Paper' on the management of Covid-19, accusing the Central government of not taking adequate measures to prevent and contain the pandemic.
Releasing the document at a virtual press conference, he said: "This White Paper is a discussion that has taken place within the Congress structure and we have had a discussion with the experts and we have basically developed four pillars."
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The first, Gandhi said, "is the idea of understanding exactly what went wrong, which is the foundation of the White Paper". The second pillar is preparation for the third wave, which includes developing the critical infrastructure, including oxygen, and other elements.
"The third pillar... that we have been repeating again and again and again, is the idea of an economic assistance package. Covid is not just a biological phenomena, it is also an economic and social phenomena and that is why we have to make sure that the poorest people, the weakest people, small and medium businesses are provided support, that they need to get through and the fourth and final element is a Covid compensation fund, where we give money to people who have lost loved ones, where we commit to them support of the Indian nation and say 'look, we stand with you in this difficult time'," he said.
The White Paper termed the "mismanagement of the Covid pandemic as India's gravest governance failure" and charged the Narendra Modi government with not taking adequate measures to prevent and contain the pandemic.
It said that the Modi government's handling of the Covid-19 crisis began with its "early inaction" in January 2020, and how "ignored early warnings from experts and political leaders from the opposition".
"It failed to learn from the lessons and response models of other countries which had been hit by the pandemic," it said, adding that the government did not scale up nationwide lessons from Kerala's experience in successfully suppressing the Nipah virus outbreak.
"This inaction for a period of nearly two months was completely avoidable and cost us dearly," it held.
On Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated the people of the country for a record single-day vaccination drive.
Expressing happiness over the fact that 80 lakh people got the vaccine jab on Monday, the Prime Minister praised the frontline Corona warriors for their hard work.
"Today's record-breaking vaccination numbers are gladdening. The vaccine remains our strongest weapon to fight Covid-19. Congratulations to those who got vaccinated and kudos to all the frontline warriors working hard to ensure so many citizens got the vaccine. Well done India!" he tweeted.
India's cumulative vaccination coverage has exceeded 28.80 ll crores on Monday, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) said on Monday after 80 lakh dose was administered on single day.
According to the data released by the Union Health Ministry on Monday morning, a total of 28,00,36,898 vaccine doses have been administered in the country through 38,24,408 sessions, including 30,39,996 doses on Sunday.
As many as 1,01,25,143 healthcare workers (HCWs) have received their first dose while 70,72,595 have been administered the second dose. Similarly, 1,71,73,646 frontline workers (FLWs) have been inoculated with the first dose while 90,51,173 have received their second dose.
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