AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi made some remarks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi soon after his speech last evening. Here are excerpts from his comments...

Thanks to PM for another episode of an unnecessary lecture that could have been a press release. Reversal of vax policy seems to be the result of SC's order. Although blame for a terrible vaccine policy has been put on states, it's Modi who failed to ensure vax supply

Modi put politics before saving lives. Did it create a horrible "liberalised" vaccine policy just to insult states? It's always chosen as a gimmick over efforts to increase vax production. Forget everything else, the only question for the PM is why's there such a large shortage of vaccines?

Till April, no money was spent on ramping up vaccine production. If there are no vaccines, it does not matter who procures them. Not surprisingly, private hospitals will continue to have a 25% quota so that rich have a ‘VIP queue’, while the poor have to wait for vaccine availability.

Modi congratulated himself for vaccinating frontline staff "in time". Of the 30cr priority group that had to be vaccinated only 10% were vaccinated by early May. We need ~60 crore doses to vax them by July. Currently, we get only ~8cr doses/month PM failed in basic math. Modi congratulated himself that India is vaccinating people better than many countries & we're even being appreciated for COWIN. As long as he gets foreign validation, he doesn't care about saving lives. The only test that matters is how many Indians are fully vaccinated? >4%

How can one take pride in COWIN? What purpose does it serve? It's a lottery. Till recently it was only available in English, a language understood by a small minority. It excludes women, poor, rural Indians & the majority who don’t have internet. Why stop walk-in vaccination? Lastly, it is good that Modi has pointed out that many people have spread propaganda against vaccines. Hope his govt takes action against such people & punishes Ministers who are always at the service of such anti-science people.