Congress will squander Covid opportunity by lying on vaccine exports, undermining India

Congress has sniffed a completely unexpected political opportunity in the carcasses of the second-wave COVID-19 devastation in India. Sensing fortuity in others’ misery is hardly surprising or too unsettling in the amoral hunting grounds of politics. If the BJP were in Congress’ unenviable shoes, its instincts would have worked in the same way. But what is disturbing is how Congress is going about trying to encash this opportunity. On Tuesday, several BJP leaders led by JP Nadda and Smriti Irani produced a “toolkit”, purportedly created by the Congress to activate its ecosystem of “friendly journalists” and influencers, building a narrative that seeks to undermine the position of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Even that could be deemed kosher in politics. But what is sinister is that the alleged toolkit seems to advise its intended readers to undermine the nation itself, and that is something which those in the Congress and its ecosystem seem to be already doing! Calling the new strain of the virus the ‘Indian variant’, for instance. Even the World Health Organisation has scoffed at such targeting, that too when it is widely known to have originated from China (many intelligence agencies including the CIA have bluntly said that the coronavirus came from Wuhan’s biological weapons labs). That hasn’t stopped Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Shashi Tharoor and others repeatedly calling it the ‘Indian variant’, and its “friendly journalists” even calling it the ‘Modi variant’.

This invariably leads to the question: Is Congress opposing the ruling party or the nation itself?

The party has denied the existence of such a toolkit and even threatened to bring the BJP leaders to book for forgery. It may well be right. But strategist and policy expert Abhijit Iyer-Mitra has requested Congress to clear its position on three important matters, given its leaders’ and ecosystem’s recent public utterances. Does the Congress believe the Kumbh mela was a super-spreader but farmers’ protests and Ramzan gatherings were not? Does the party they distance itself from the use of “India variant”? A list of tweeple Congress ground activists helped during Covid who did not tag Indian Youth Congress leaders (the purported toolkit mentions extending favours to only those who tag IYC while asking for help on social media).

But Congress’ biggest ingenuity lies in its lies about vaccine exports. It keeps harping on the fact that the Modi government sent vaccines abroad for goodwill while Indians were dying for the want of the jab back home. Trying Gaza-like propaganda, Rahul Gandhi went to the ludicrous extent of questioning the prime minister on why Indian children’s vaccines were sent abroad (whoever has seen a children’s Covid vaccine?). What he carefully did not mention that India got Covishield, which was developed abroad, because of our commitment to export some batches in the spirit of international cooperation. We are getting aid and patent waivers now because of that. Covishield isn’t an Indian intellectual property. It comes with commitments of exports. Some try to draw a false equivalence with the US, saying, “America didn’t export before it had vaccinated its people, so why did India act generously in a hurry?” They miss the point that the US could do it because both their vaccines were developed in America. Most of India’s exports were of Covishield, which has not been developed by us. The Modi government is facing its worst crisis of credibility right now. But Rahul Gandhi does not seem to learn from his mistakes. He is hell-bent on lying, undermining this nation, and shoo off Indians who may be keen to see him as an alternative.