Hyderabad: Senior Congress leader and former minister Ponnala Lakshmaiah on Saturday criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday for taking credit for 100 crore vaccinations in the country.
As reported by The Hindu, Lakshmaiah stated that, if the scientific community would have worked according to PM Modi and participated in clapping and displaying lights, India would never have achieved the landmark. He expressed his displeasure over the fact that the PM was taking credit for the vaccination rate which had little do with the Prime Minister. He furthered said that during the Congress regime India achieved polio vaccination to all eligible people but the then Prime Ministers never claimed personal credit.
Lakshmaiah recalled when the World Health Organisation (WHO) on March 27, 2014, had declared India to be a polio-free country. He stated that during the same time India had launched the Universal Immunization Programme (UIP) to cover all the districts of the country. The UIP became a part of the ongoing child survival and safe motherhood program in 1992, this was during the Congress government.
The former minister took a dig at the PM over the publicity of the vaccination program, saying, “Manmohan Singh, during his Prime Ministership, didn’t put posters of himself when a record 17 crore polio doses were given as he was not keen on self promotion.”
Speaking at a press conference Rammiah slammed the PM over the slow vaccination rate, “679 crore COVID-19 vaccines had been given across the world so far and 106 countries had vaccinated the entire population of theirs”. “However, despite being producers of the vaccine we could vaccinate 100 crore out of the 130 crore population” he lamented.