Team News Riveting
Congress party remained a divided house when it came to respond to the world’s largest vaccination programme that started today to prevent from deadly COVID-19.
There are different voices within the party on the issue. While Congress leader Manish Tewari castigated the Centre, its Rajya Sabha member Vivek Tankha had publically welcomed the move to vaccinate the people.
In a tweet, Tankha said it was an important day for the 136 crore people. From today, vaccination is starting…an effort to make people of India fearless… salute to the scientists and doctors.
The Congress leader from Madhya Pradesh added that he prays for the success of the campaign as it will be a milestone despite many hurdles. Ironically, his party colleague contested.
“Many eminent doctors have raised questions with regard to the efficacy and safety of Covaxin with the government saying that people will not be able to choose as to which vaccine they would like to take. This goes against the entire doctrine of informed consent,” Tewari told a news agency.
Ironically, Tankha underlined how the vaccination would make people “fearless”, Tewari appeared to be creating sensation and unleashing panic among the people.
Earlier, Congress leaders had spilled out their difference over the vaccine as its chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala lauded scientists and researchers of Bharat Biotech for the indigenous vaccine.
Leaders like Anand Sharma, Jairam Ramesh and Shashi Tharoor asked the health minister to explain why mandatory protocols and verification of data “had been dispensed with”, prompting a sharp retort from Union Minister Hardeep Puri who said the Congress leaders were behaving “true to their form” and were on a “quest for permanent political marginalisation”.
