West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee writes to PM Modi, seeks aid on vaccines, medicines, oxygen

By Team Newsable | First Published Apr 18, 2021, 5:05 PM IST

Meanwhile, former Prime Minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singh also wrote to PM Modi suggesting measures to tackle the Covid-19 surge across India.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has written to PM Narendra Modi requesting supply of more vaccine doses, steady supply of Remdesivir and Tocilizumab medicines and supply of oxygen as soon as possible.

Highlighting the lack of vaccine stock, she demanded an additional 5.4 crore vaccine doses to inoculate 2.7 crore citizens. She added that while the state had offered to freely vaccinate all citizens by freeing up the SDRF, she said such permission was not given by the Centre.

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Meanwhile, former Prime Minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singh also wrote to PM Modi suggesting measures to tackle the Covid-19 surge across India.

In a letter to the prime minister, the veteran Congress leader said one must not look at absolute numbers but the total percentage of population vaccinated.

"The key to our fight against Covid-19 must be ramping up the vaccination effort. We must resist the temptation to look at the absolute numbers being vaccinated, and focus instead on the percentage of the population vaccinated," he said in his letter. Noting that India currently has vaccinated only a small fraction of its population, Singh said he is certain that with the right policy design, "we can do much better and very quickly".

With BJP, Trinamool and the Congress-Left alliance entangled in battle for Bengal, top leaders like PM Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, JP Nadda, Mamata Banerjee, Abhishek Banerjee, Rahul Gandhi and Adhir Ranjan Choudhury are holding massive rallies and roadshows across the state.

Visuals shared by these leaders show massive crowds flouting social distancing guidelines, not wearing masks, cheering as the nation battles a second Covid-19 wave. With experts expressing concern over the lack of any social distancing in these rallies, many have criticised these politicians for sending the wrong message amid a pandemic.

India reported 2,61,500 fresh Covid cases in the last 24 hours – the highest single-day spike ever – pushing the country’s overall Covid tally to 1,47,88,109, according to the Health Ministry data released on Sunday.

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