Modi govt has clearly failed on Covid-19 vaccination front: Prithviraj Chavan

Senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan has hit out at the Narendra Modi government over a host of issues including its failure on the coronavirus vaccination front and the rise in fuel prices He was here to take part in the Congress partys agitation over the fuel price and other issuesAddressing a press conference on the occasion Chavan said that in the last 186 days since the countrywide vaccination drive began the Centre has administered one Covid19 vaccine dose to 36 crore people while only 815 crore people have received both doses With this pace only 1415 crore people will be fully vaccinated by December this year he saidAccording to him even if the government doubles up the speed of vaccination the count of fully vaccinated people wont go above 25 crore by the end of this year This is a clear failure of the central government With this pace it will take a long time for the economic revival he allegedThe former Maharashtra chief minister also accused the Modi government of adopting an easy way of increasing taxes on fuel to cover up the losses Fuel prices surged around 66 times in the last year A major component of the fuel price is excise duty When the Modi government came to power in 2014 the excise duty on petrol was Rs 948 and now it is Rs 3290 which is an almost a 316 per cent increase in excise duty on petrol For diesel it has increased by 840 per cent he claimed and added that due to this the staterun petroleum companies were making a huge profitThe central government was selling the family jewels that are government companies to manage the deficit he added He hit out at senior BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis saying that he was misleading people by giving false information on the fuel prices and blaming the Uddhav Thackerayled Maha Vikas Aghadi MVA government for the rise in petroleum products in Maharashtra The state government charges the same VAT on fuel that was being charged by the previous Fadnavis government Chavan saidThe Congressled UPA government had brought 14 crore people out of the BPL category with great efforts but the present regime has pushed 23 crore of them back to poverty he alleged Coronavirus pandemic is not the only reason behind it The situation was the same even before this crisisiquest According to figures from last seven quarters the growth rate is coming down the Congress leader saidAlso Read Sharad Pawar writes to PM Modi on amendments in Banking Regulation Act highlights three inconsistenciesOn the recent reshuffle of the Union council of ministers Chavan said As per Prime Minister Narendra Modis statement the government failed to handle the pandemic hence they were changing the health minister The same is the case with the education minister Modi government reshuffled the cabinet because the ministers were inefficient My question to the PM is why did it take seven years for you to realise that these ministers are inefficient He said that all the decisions are anyway taken at the PMO so changing the faces of ministers would not make any differenceReplying to a query on the Enforcement Directorate ED and Central Bureau of Investigation CBI actions against various leaders Chavan said Inquiries should be conducted to punish the wrongdoers but by following the court procedures Nowadays raids arrests and many more things are happening However there is no conclusion of these actions He alleged that the central government was using these agencies to blackmail leaders from the rival partiesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever