COVID-19: 'Let Congress Vaccinate' campaign launched in K'taka
New Delhi: Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) on Tuesday launched a massive online campaign to create awareness about the importance of COVID-19 vaccination and to build pressure on the government to allow the Congress in Karnataka to directly procure COVID-19 vaccines with their 'Rs 100 crore plan'. This comes days after Karnataka Congress had said it has prepared a Rs 100 crore plan to procure vaccines directly from manufacturers.
DK Shivakumar, the president of the state unit of the party, said that Rs 10 crore will come from the Congress and the remaining Rs 90 crore can come from funds of their MLA/MLC funds. As part of the 'Let Congress Vaccinate' campaign, Shivakumar, former Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, KPCC Working President Eshwar Khandre and several MLAs and MLCs shared their video messages to highlight the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government's alleged failure to procure vaccine and inoculate people in this pandemic. According to an official statement, more than 20,000 people lent their support to the campaign on the day of the launch and shared their videos on Twitter and Facebook, asking the BJP government to permit the Congress to procure vaccines directly and vaccinate the people of Karnataka.
"BJP has not made enough vaccines available to Karnataka, choosing to export them instead for their own narrow PR gains. The consequence of this is that the health and well-being of our people have been compromised, thereby increasing the mortality rate in our state due to COVID," Shivakumar said asserting that "Congress is firm on its Rs 100-core plan."
"This fund shall be utilised to directly procure vaccines from manufacturers and administer them to the people of Karnataka," he added. Seeking support of the public for its Rs 100 crore plan, the KPCC President said: "The Congress Party has been repeatedly asking for permission for vaccination from the Government but we have not been granted it yet. On behalf of the Congress Party, we need your wholehearted support so that we can build pressure on the Government and we are able to show to them how vaccines can be procured and administered to people - in a totally transparent, fair and efficient manner."
Siddaramaiah also asserted that the BJP government has failed miserably in tackling the spread of coronavirus. "It is a proven fact that people can be protected from COVID-19 by vaccination. The BJP government has botched up the vaccination process and left the people of Karnataka in a miserable condition. Today there is no system in place and people have to fend for themselves," he said in the video shared on Twitter. According to the Union Health Ministry, Karnataka has 4,73,007 active COVID-19 cases. The total number of recoveries has reached 19,26,615 and fatalities have mounted to 25,282.
