New Delhi: Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Sunday (May 9, 2021) attacked the Centre over its 'vaccine maitri' and said that it was busy in 'international image management' instead of handling the COVID-19 pandemic. 


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Manish Sisodia stated if the COVID-19 vaccine doses were not exported, they could have been used to vaccinate and save the lives of people who died due to coronavirus.


"At a time when almost every Indian family was affected due to the virus, the Central Government exported 6.6 crore COVID-19 vaccines to 93 countries and left its own country's people to die," the Delhi's Deputy Chief Minister tweeted in Hindi.



He stated that the youth in India are dying due to the shortage of coronavirus vaccines and alleged that Central Government provided the Delhi government with only 5.5 lakh vaccine doses for people over 18 years of age, while it exported over 6.6 million doses to countries like the United Arab Emirates, Bangladesh, Oman, Afghanistan and Morocco.


Sisodia blamed the Centre for the shortage of vaccine and said, "If there were so much amount of vaccine, it should have been given to our own people for better COVID-19 management but the central government was engaged in international image management."



He also said, "It is a good thing to worry about the world, but the countries like USA, Canada, Europe, are arranging vaccines for their people first. Only France exported 1 lakh vaccines last month." 


"Our central government has donated 6.6 crore since March," he added.



Meanwhile, the Centre on Sunday morning said that it has so far provided more than 17.56 crore vaccine doses to states and UTs free of cost. "Of this, the total consumption including wastages is 16,83,78,796 doses as per data available at 8 am on Sunday," the press statement read.



(With inputs from agencies)