Mumbai: Amid a serious shortage of COVID-19 vaccine, leaders from Maharashtra's ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) slammed the Centre alleging "stepmotherly treatment" in giving vaccine doses.
State Congress President Nana Patole, state Nationalist Congress Party President and Minister Jayant Patil and other leaders targeted Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan for his furious statements against the Maharashtra government on Wednesday.
Maharashtra is a big state with the highest number of cases and it was the Centre's duty to provide more doses rather than to a small state like Gujarat, according to Congress leaders.
Responding, Leader of Opposition Devendra Fadnavis lashed out at the state government.
he said that only three states - Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan received more than 1 crore vaccines, and the "supply is not on the basis of population but purely based on state's performance of execution of vaccination process".
hiChallenging state Health Minister Rajesh Tope's statement on shortage of doses, Fadnavis said that Gujarat and Rajasthan have almost equal population and Maharashtra has received 1.06 crore doses of which 91 lakhs were administered, leaving another 15 lakhs with the state government.
"So why are vaccination centres deliberately shut down today and why spread the false news? Maharashtra to receive another 19 lakh vaccines between April 9-12 Due to lack of even basic facilities, sufferings of the people are on a rise day by day. Does the CM or ministers even care to pay attention to this," he said.
He added that since the MVA is constantly facing criticism over its mis-governance and various exposes in courts lately, "its an absolute shame that vaccination politics is being played out to divert peoples' attention".
Fadnavis said that he had spoken to Union Minister, who assured there was "never every any biased approach towards Maharashtra and supplies are smooth."
Both sides continue to blame each other for playing "vaccine politics" at the height of the outbreak.
Meanwhile, Maharashtra on Thursday added 56,286 new patients taking the tally of COVID cases to 32,29,547 till date.