Amaravati: A day after the Andhra Pradesh government claimed to have vaccinated over a record-13.72 lakh in a single day on Sunday, the state unit of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) called out chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy for stealing credit.
The party said that the vaccines were, in fact, sent by them and blamed Jagan for taking all the credit. However, it is noteworthy that the central government supplies vaccines for free to all states as announced earlier and the latter administers them as per its availability.
In a statement on Monday, Andhra Pradesh BJP president Somu Veerraju said that the BJP-led central government sent in 9.56 lakh vaccines for the free vaccination drive, but Jagan’s government used all of it on the previous day for creating his own feat.
The party also said that the vaccines sent in by the Centre were meant for the Yoga Day special vaccination drive. “When the party cadre, including president Somu Veerraju visited vaccination centres for supervising the drive in Visakhapatnam, only low turnout was noted. The officials informed that a lot of the vaccines received were administered on the previous day itself,” the statement said.
Veerraju also condemned Jagan’s publicity, even as the state government received the vaccines for free from the Modi government. “No vaccination centre had Prime Minister Modi’s picture, for providing vaccines,” he added.
BJP state unit also said that the 18-45 group were not among even half of those who were vaccinated on Sunday. They demanded another special inoculation drive for the group.