All-party meet may discuss vaccine progress, winter session

India’s covid-19 vaccination programme, the need to have free vaccines, management of the pandemic and the status of the Parliament’s winter session are among issues that political parties plan to raise at Friday’s all-party meeting called by the Union government. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to chair the meeting.

The government has a lot to answer for on the management of the coronavirus pandemic and the prime minister must hold a similar meeting with all chief ministers to ensure free vaccines for everyone, and not just states where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won power by making it an election promise, said several opposition leaders.

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“The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government has promised to provide free vaccines to all people of Bihar, and the promise was made before the Assembly elections. It is the responsibility of the Union government to provide free vaccines to all citizens and not use it as a strategy in election-bound states. We are going to demand that similar free vaccination programmes should be run by the Union government in the country because it is the right of all the people to get free vaccines if one state is getting it free,” said a senior leader of the Samajwadi Party (SP).

Political parties may also demand that the government produce a white paper on the spread of coronavirus and whether official measures improved the lives of people.

“The need of the hour is a white paper or a detailed report by the Union government on the management of covid-19. The government has completely failed in its effort and we believe that the Centre should provide us with a blueprint of its plan to hold the adult vaccination programme that would be undertaken once the vaccine against covid-19 is ready,” said a senior leader of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), which became the single largest party in Bihar in the recently concluded Assembly polls.

Parties may also demand that the Union government meet all state chief ministers and health ministers and discuss the vaccination programme.

The winter session of Parliament is also expected to be discussed. The government has neither announced the dates for the session, nor said if it would be merged with budget session or whether there would be a smaller winter session..