COVID vaccine export: Congress slams Centre, leaders change profile photos after arrest over posters

By ANI
NEW DELHI: Several leaders of the Congress party, including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, on Sunday took to the social media to hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for exporting COVID-19 vaccines earlier this year amid the coronavirus crisis in the country.

This comes days after the Delhi Police arrested at least 21 people in the national capital under sections of the Defacement of Public Property Act for putting up the same poster in different parts of the city. The profile picture of the party’s Twitter handle too was replaced by the poster. “Modi ji, Why did you send our children’s vaccines abroad?,” the poster said in Hindi.

#ArrestMeToo….We are eagerly waiting .@narendramodi Sahab ji.. pic.twitter.com/45NLOAHnTT
— WB Youth Congress (@IYCWestBengal) May 16, 2021

Rahul Gandhi tweeted a photo of the poster on Sunday, along with the caption – “Arrest me too”.

At a virtual press conference earlier in the day, Congress leaders Pawan Khera said, “On behalf of the lakhs and lakhs of people who died.. we ask you (Centre) Where is my vaccine? Why did you sell my vaccine, the vaccine that belongs to me, my family and my children abroad?”

“On behalf of every single India, Mr Modi, I dare you to arrest me,” he added.

The country is currently in the middle of a devastating second COVID-19 wave and is facing a massive shortage of vaccines. Over the last few days, inoculation centres across states have closed and state governments have floated global tenders to meet the shortages.

Leaders of the opposition have repeatedly hit out at the Centre’s management of COVID-19 vaccination in the country, with many insisting that the Centre’s new ‘liberated’ vaccination policy be revised.

Last week, twelve opposition leaders including Sonia Gandhi, Sharad Pawar, Uddhav Thackeray, Mamata Banerjee and others slammed the government over its handling of the COVID-19 situation and demanded free, universal mass vaccination campaign across the country.

India reported 3,11,170 new COVID-19 cases, 3,62,437 recoveries and 4,077 deaths in the last 24 hours, the Union Health Ministry informed on Sunday. A total of 18,22,20,164 doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered across the country so far.