Mamata Banerjee trying to politicise vaccination drive before polls: BJP

Kolkata, Jan 16: Bharatiya Janata Party national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya criticised West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for her allegations of fewer vaccines being sent to the state and accused her of trying to politicise the vaccination programme ahead of the assembly polls.

Banerjee during the day expressed her dissatisfaction over "inadequate" number of COVID-19 vaccines supplied to West Bengal for the inoculation process.

"She should stop politicising everything. None of the states has complained only she is complaining about it. She is trying to politicise the issue before the assembly polls," Vijayvargiya said.

Polls to 294-member Bengal assembly are due in April-May this year.

He asked Banerjee to come clean on whether the state or the centre is providing the vaccines for free of cost.

"She earlier said that she will provide vaccines free of cost. The centre has already said that it would provide the vaccines for free but the TMC government jumped into it to claim credit," he said.

When asked about Banerjee's allegations of fewer vaccines being sent to the state, he trashed it as baseless.

"The allegations are baseless. If the number of vaccines is falling short it is because of the TMC leaders and MLAs are queueing up to have it," he quipped.

Expressing her dissatisfaction over the inadequate number of COVID-19 vaccines supplied to West Bengal for the inoculation process, Banerjee said that her government, if needed, would supply the vaccines free of cost to the people of the state.

Banerjee said that she has already "requested the central government to supply adequate numbers of vaccines for not only the frontline workers but also for all the people of West Bengal."

Two Trinamool Congress MLAs -- Rabindranath Chatterjee and Subhas Mondal -- took the vaccine doses in Purbo Bardhaman district Saturday triggering a political row.

Authorities of the two state hospitals, where the vaccinations took place, however, insisted both legislators were members of the Patient Welfare Committees and figured in the selected list adhering to all selection procedures and no rules were violated.

with PTI inputs