Ashok Gehlot congratulates Opposition leaders, others for exerting pressure on Centre to amend vaccine policy

Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has congratulated Opposition CMs and others for exerting pressure on the Centre which forced the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to announce free vaccination.

Gehlot pointed out that former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and the whole Opposition raised their protest against the wrong policies of the Centre and demanded universal vaccination.

He said many states including Rajasthan had to approach the Supreme Court on the issue of vaccination and the concerted efforts forced Modi to reverse his wrong decisions.

Gehlot has been continuously demanding and appealing for the Central government to provide free vaccination to all. He had raised the issue in his April 23 meeting with the Prime Minister, when he spoke to the Chief Ministers. Gehlot had demanded that the vaccination should be done by the Centre with the states acting as the facilitator.

Gehlot has also written several letters to the Prime Minister urging him for supply of vaccines.

Gehlot had tweeted 13 times to remind the Prime Minister on the difficulties faced by the states and the people on this issue.

In his latest tweet on Sunday, Gehlot expressed concern over the issue of vaccination and urged the Centre to accelerate the process of vaccination to save the country’s youth.

Prime Minister finally announced free vaccination for all citizens above 18 years of age from June 21.

After the announcement made by the Prime Minister on Monday, Gehlot issued a series of tweets. One such tweet read, “I am happy that the PM had to change his decision keeping in view the public sentiments. It was due to the campaign by Congress that forced the Central government to change its stand”.

Gehlot congratulated all the MPs, MLAs, Congress workers and the general public who participated in the social media campaign run by the Rajasthan Pradesh Congress using the hashtag #SpeakForFreeUniversalVaccination.

Gehlot tweeted: “It is due to your sentiment that Prime Minister Narendra Modiji had to announce free vaccination for all the countrymen. This is a victory of the public sentiments.”

Gehlot also strongly countered the claims made by the Prime Minister that it was due to the demands made by the states that the responsibility of vaccination for 18 plus age group was given to them.

“PM Modi should inform which states had demanded to buy and provide vaccine for the age-group of 18 to 44 years. To my knowledge, no state had made such demand. The PM’s advisors seem to have given him the wrong information,” Gehlot tweeted, immediately after the Prime Minister’s address to the nation yesterday.

Reminding the Prime Minister of the April 23 video conference with the Chief Minister, Gehlot said from the very beginning, the demand was that like vaccination programme in the past, COVID vaccination should be done by the Centre free of cost.

He said no state government had made any provisions in the budget for vaccination of the 18 plus age group and no suggestion was made to the Centre to such an effect.