Ruling BJD and opposition BJP have been at loggerheads over the use of only Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s photos and not also of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s in the posters at Covid-19 vaccination centres almost across the State. On Wednesday, furious BJP workers in the presence of Union Minister Pratap Chandra Sarangi barged into thr Gandhi Smruti Bhawan vaccination centre in Baleswar and ransacked and removed the posters and banners carrying photos of the Chief Minister.
On June 21, saffron party workers had gone to vaccination centres at different places in Rayagada, Baleswar and Angul districts opposing non-use of Modi’s picture on the banners and posters.
Reacting over the issue, Bhubaneswar BJP MP Aparajita Sarangi, whose office had been sealed last year by the BMC authorities for flouting Covid-19 norms, took to Twitter and wrote, “Odisha failed to procure vaccines; it sought Central Govt’s support.
Our PM Narendra Modi has come to the rescue of Odisha CM. Basic courtesy demands that PM Modi’s photos with CM’s photos are put up at all vaccination points by State Govt.
Height of insecurity & narrow mindedness!” Replying to Sarangi’s tweet, Rajya Sabha BJD member Sasmit Patra said, “PM’s photo is there on every Covid vaccination certificate. While every party made an issue out of it, BJD never made it an issue or politics over it. You are an ex-bureaucrat.
Vaccination in India has always been a national programme done by Central Government whether its polio, BCG, measles, DPT, Hepatitis, Vitamin A. When did it become a State programme, except now that it was forced upon the States and subsequently withdrawn?” “CM’s message has been put out across State calling for using masks, Covid-appropriate behavior; it is nothing about vaccination.
It is petty and shameful to do politics out of this. I am afraid you may be insecure about your political relevance and doing this narrow minded politics. However thanks for wearing masks off late,” Patra added.
Commenting on the issue, a person who came to the vaccination centre to receive his jab said that while taxpayers’ money goes in the process of vaccination, politicians are busy scoring some brownie points.
