The government of Maharashtra, after its abject failure in controlling Coronavirus disease and vaccination, is now putting the blame on the Union government for everything. Rajesh Tope, the health minister of Maharashtra, has said that there is a shortage of vaccines in the state, and the vaccine drive may be halted for a few days if the Union government does not allow the delivery of vaccines.
“We do not have enough vaccine doses. Health workers have to turn away recipients. We cannot afford to slow the pace. We are ready to increase daily immunisations to 5 lakh, maybe scale up to 6 lakh,” Health Minister Rajesh Tope said, adding he had requested more doses, especially of Covaxin. “There is more demand for Covaxin.”
However, the Union government said that there are enough vaccines at the disposal of the state government and they are politicising the public health issue. Harsh Vardhan, the Union Health Minister, said that the government in the states like Maharashtra, Delhi and Punjab is “trying to divert attention from their poor vaccination efforts by just continuously shifting the goalposts.”
He also targeted the Maharashtra government specifically and said, there have been “deplorable attempts by some state governments to distract attention from their failures” and “spread panic among the people”.
“Maharashtra has vaccinated just only 86% of health workers with the first dose. The equivalent numbers for Delhi and Punjab are 72% and 64%. On the other hand, 10 Indian states/UTs have done more than 90%,” added Harsh Vardhan.
Recently, the MVA government had imposed a night curfew from 8 pm to 7 am from Monday whilst simultaneously announcing that the state will also go for a complete weekend lockdown from 8 pm on Friday to 7 am on Monday. As per the new rules, hotels and restaurants can only allow takeaways. In-hotel dining will not be permitted. The immediate response of the hospitality and dining sector has been tear-jerking and emotional, to say the least.
The Uddhav government has not been able to control the virus despite having the best medical professionals (Mumbai has many of the top hospitals in the country) and spending billions of taxpayers’ money (of the state treasury as well as the money given by the Union government).
Despite the oft-repeated advice from the top medical professionals that the lockdowns do not help to prevent the virus from spreading, the Uddhav government allegedly resorted to its own ways and as a result, the cases of COVID have surged in Maharashtra.
There is a shortage of COVID19 vaccine doses in Mumbai. Yesterday, we had 1,76,000 vaccine doses but in the coming days we will require more vaccines: Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar pic.twitter.com/LXa12YNGPd
— ANI (@ANI) April 7, 2021
Kishori Pednekar, the Mayor of Mumbai and a senior Shiv Sena leader, who proved to be among the most ineffective city administrators, also blamed the Union government for the lack of availability of vaccines. “There is a shortage of COVID19 vaccine doses in Mumbai. Yesterday, we had 1,76,000 vaccine doses but in the coming days we will require more vaccines,” she said.
The politicians and administrators of Maharashtra need to get their act together and focus on controlling the rising Covid cases and increase vaccination. The BMC officials are busy making money by helping people to escape institutional quarantine and the Union health minister also highlighted this. “It is shocking to see how the state Government is putting Maharashtrians in danger by letting people escape institutional quarantine mandate for the sake of their personal Vasuli,” he said.
The inefficient leadership of Uddhav Thackeray and rampant corruption prevalent in his administration is single-handedly responsible for the worsening situation in Maharashtra.
He is learning from Kejriwal how to shift blame for his incompetence.