Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday said that ‘Team India’ has to come together to fight coronavirus and urged the Centre to procure vaccines and distribute them to the States.

Addressing the media, Kejriwal accused the Centre of abdicating its responsibilities and leaving it to the States to procure the vaccines on their own. “The Central Government is responsible for purchasing and supplying vaccines. As a country, India cannot lose this war against Covid,” he said.

He assured Prime Minister Narendra Modi that all Chief Ministers of the country were ready to take on any duties, but on its part the Central Government should fulfil its responsibilities as States cannot fulfil some of those responsibilities.

Kejriwal said that India delayed its own inoculation programme by six months. “Many countries had started vaccinating their people. But in India, rather than vaccinating our own people, the vaccines were sent abroad. Had we started the vaccination programme earlier, we could have saved many people from the second wave that has hit us so badly,” he said.

“Vaccines for those above 18 years of age have gotten over in Delhi. For the past four days, the vaccination centres for the youth have been shut.

We have written to the Central Government but the vaccines have not yet arrived. This is not just the case with Delhi but it’s the same situation across the country. In a pandemic situation, we should ideally be opening new centres every day, but that is not happening.

“The second wave has proved to be extremely deadly for the country. Barely any family has remained untouched by Covid. This is because India’s vaccination drive got delayed by six months due to the vaccine diplomacy. We made a huge mistake at that time. Instead of vaccinating our own citizens, we began exporting vaccines to other nations,” he concluded.