In the realm of New Delhi, the Congress asserted on Friday that the Modi administration was “coerced into” furnishing complimentary COVID-19 inoculations under the behest of the opposition and the Supreme Court, emphasizing the challenge to disregard the “magnitude of the disarray” that ensued throughout the pandemic.

The general secretary of the Congress, Jairam Ramesh, articulated that the BJP has been extolling gratis COVID-19 vaccinations as a notable feat. “The veracity lies in the fact that the Modi Sarkar was coerced into this action by the insistence of the Opposition and the intervention of the Supreme Court. Perceive the sequence of events: On April 18, 2021, Dr. Manmohan Singh corresponded with the Prime Minister, urging him to elucidate the vaccine policy – hitherto in disarray and lacking systemization – and proffering well-considered recommendations on how to optimize vaccinations,” Ramesh expounded on X.

Subsequently, on April 19, 2021, the federal administration unveiled the “Liberalised Pricing and Accelerated National COVID-19 Vaccination Strategy,” thereby designating the vaccination of individuals aged 18 to 44 years as the obligation of state governments – evidently not a comprehensive free immunization scheme, he disclosed.

Highlighting further, Ramesh remarked that on May 12, 2021, 12 dignitaries from the Opposition drafted a collective missive to the prime minister, wherein they pressed for a “gratis, universal mass vaccination campaign.” On May 31, 2021, the Supreme Court adjudged the Modified Vaccination Strategy as “capricious and irrational,” mandating the Modi government to reassess it by June 13, 2021, he underscored.

“It was exclusively at that juncture, on June 7, 2021, that PM (Narendra) Modi promulgated a universal vaccination initiative,” Ramesh articulated. “The magnitude of the disarray that unfolded during the COVID-19 pandemic is indelible: the cadavers that obstructed the Ganga, the acute scarcities of oxygen, the indignities and pandemonium of the vaccinations,” he asseverated. Ramesh contended that no quantum of “propaganda” will expunge the anguish of myriad families across India.