Shiv Sena, AAP and other opposition parties are playing such dirty politics that Bharat Biotech was forced to slam them

The way in which Serum Institute of India’s CEO Adar Poonawalla was hounded out of India to the United Kingdom is a major source of embarrassment for the country. As if Poonawalla wasn’t enough, the Opposition parties have now trained their guns on Bharat Biotech and Covaxin, with the company which is quite literally saving lives at a breakneck speed having to come out and defend itself as the vaccine maker stated that it was feeling “disheartened”.

After a coordinated campaign by educated buffoons like Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor and his colleagues in the Indian National Congress where they initially spread fears over the efficacy of the Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin, the likes of Shiv Sena-AAP-YSRCP have banded together to attack Bharat Biotech.

Earlier this week, the good-for-nothing Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal appealed to the Central government to share the Covid-19 vaccine formula of Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech with other firms in the country and hence scale up the production of the vaccine.

The Delhi CM said, “Only 2 companies are producing vaccines. They produce only 6-7 crore vaccines a month. This way, it’ll take over 2 yrs to vaccinate everyone. Many waves would’ve come by then. Important to increase vaccine production on war footing & frame national plan to vaccinate all.”

Echoing Kejriwal’s sentiments, Andhra Pradesh CM Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy urged Prime Minister Modi to direct Bharat Biotech to transfer the technology to companies that are interested and capable of manufacturing the vaccine.

In his letter, Reddy wrote, “Considering that the COVAXIN® manufacturing is intended to be ramped up, we would request you to please direct Bharat Biotech to do technology transfer of manufacturing the COVAXIN® and ICMR-NIV to provide the viral strain to whoever interested and capable of manufacturing the vaccine.”

Just a few days earlier, India’s self-crowned Covidiologist, Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray and his administration tried to suppress the Bharat Biotech’s Pune facility.

Last week, the Bombay High Court bench of Justices Kamal Kishor Tated and Nitin Borkar permitted Hyderabad based Bharat Biotech’s associated company Biovit Private Limited to take possession of a fully operational and ready-to-use vaccine manufacturing plant on a 12-hectare plot in Pune to produce Covaxin. The decision comes after a lot of tug of war between Biovit and the Maharashtra government as the latter gave one excuse after another to stall the process. The division bench allowed Biovit’s interim application in a petition challenging the Forest Department’s decision to disallow them from restarting a manufacturing unit on forest land.

When Biovit sought the Maha Vikas Aghadi government’s approval to the transfer, the deputy conservator of forests (Pune division) allegedly at the behest of CM Uddhav Thackeray pointed out that it was a reserved forest and the initial 1973 grant itself was bad. Subsequently, Biovit was forced to file a petition in HC challenging the version of the Forest Department.

As if diligently following the orders of his master, Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia alleged that Bharat Biotech has refused to supply the required doses of its Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin to Delhi.

While attacking Bharat Biotech, Sisodia said, “Our reserve stock has been exhausted. The centres administering Covishield vaccines are functioning but we have had to close the centres administering Covaxin. So, we have had to close down more than 100 centres across 17 schools.”

Seemingly exasperated with the coordinated attack on Bharat Biotech, its co-founder and joint Managing Director, Suchitra Ella who is not known to be tech savvy like Adar Poonawalla took to Twitter to slam the coordinated attack.

Ella tweeted, “Covaxin dispatched 10/5/21.18 states have been covered thou in smaller shipments. Quite disheartening to the teams to hear Some states complaining about our intentions. 50 of our employees are off work due to covid, yet we continue to work under pandemic lockdowns 24×7 for U.”

It is unfortunate that the Opposition parties are hitting new lows every day and are sparing no stone unturned to needlessly attack the vaccine makers.