STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: JKPCC Vice President and former Minister Raman Bhalla said on Thursday that the resignation of Harsh Vardhan as the Health Minister during the Cabinet reshuffle is an admission that the Narendra Modi government had “utterly failed” in managing the corona pandemic.
“The resignations of the Union Health Minister and the MoS Health are a candid confession that the Modi government has utterly failed in managing the pandemic. This was observed by former Minister while interacting with prominent persons of Dilli area of Gandhi Nagar constituency over current scenario in J&K on Thursday.
“There is a lesson for Ministers in these resignations. If things go right the credit will go to the PM, if things go wrong the Minister will be the fall guy. That is the price a Minister pays for implicit obedience and unquestioning subservience,” Bhalla said.
Former Minister further said that Dr. Harsh Vardhan, a good man has been made a scapegoat for monumental failures at the highest level-nowhere else.
He said since Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank had resigned as the Education Minister, the National Education Policy (NEP) should also be scrapped.
Commenting on the exercise to rejig the Cabinet, Bhalla said it was not a cabinet expansion, but “distributing the spoils of power” and “defector adjustment programme”.
He said if performance and governance were the criteria, then Defence Minister Rajnath Singh should have been sacked, as the Chinese had occupied Indian territory and refused to vacate; Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman should have gone, as the economic growth was now minus 8% and Home Minister Amit Shah should have stepped down as naxal attacks and mob lynchings continued “unabated”. “If performance and governance was the criteria then the first person to be sacked should be the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, for he has brought the government, the entire country to a standstill, progress, peace and harmony has been thrown in the dustbin of history and the present Prime Minister would be remembered as an autocrat, Bhalla added.
Bhalla observed that in yet another move to evade responsibility, the centre is now leaving it up to the states and the private sector to procure the vaccines required to inoculate the population. The BJP sought to reduce the offences it is being blamed for and deflect attention from the party and Modi by accusing the Congress party of running a campaign to discredit ongoing Covid-19 mitigation efforts. He accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of fuelling unemployment and inflation, ruining the economy, attacking farmers, lacking sympathy for the poor, tampering with national security and mismanaging the coronavirus pandemic. He said that the prices of items from fertilisers to oil are skyrocketing. The party said that when the Modi government came to power, the price of crude oil was $108 and the cost of petrol was Rs 71.51 and that of diesel Rs 55.49. “But the Modi government imposed senseless taxes on petrol and diesel and robbed the public of Rs 22 lakh crore.”