What a prick!
By abhay mokashi
The 71st birthday of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, celebrated yesterday was a big event, not only for his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Modi’s followers, but also for the nation.
Even as there has been an acute shortage anti-COVID vaccines in the country, with vaccination drives cancelled on certain days in several states due to the non-availability of the vaccines, they were available in plenty on September 17 for the nation to set a world record for maximum number of vaccines in a day on the birthday of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. What a prick! We gave it to 2,50,10,390 people in one day!
Many people, even after a confirmed appointment for the jab, were sent back till a few days ago and suddenly on Modi’s birthday, everything went smooth; there was no shortage of vaccines, there were plenty of doctors and para-medical staff at almost all the vaccination centres in the country.
Finally, we set the record for maximum number of anti-COVID vaccines in a day. The BJP and the BJP-led government at the centre wants to show that the record was set because of Narendra Modi. True, Modi’s critics should also accept this fact that the record was set only because of the Prime Minister, because if it was not his birthday yesterday, there would not have been efforts to prick so many people in the country on September 17. At the time of penning this piece, only 69 lakh people have been given the vaccine today.
Vaccinating 2.5 crore people with the anti-COVID vaccine in a day is no doubt a record, but we cannot forget that 17.20 crore children being given the polio vaccine in a day in India.
The Supreme Court and some High Courts in the country have been approached by many regarding the non-availability of the anti-COVID vaccine in the country, its improper distribution and the tall claims made by Modi giving a timeline for vaccinating the entire nation. In the light of the sudden availability of the vaccines yesterday, the government needs to be questioned on how this happened. The query has to come from the Courts, not merely from the members of the public.
The people have a right to know if the vaccines were deliberately hoarded for use on Modi’s birthday. Many daily wage earners, had to return from the vaccination centres, after a confirmed online appointment, before September 17 and lost their wage. Who will compensate them for the financial loss the suffered, as they returned without taking the jab?
The BJP has planned a 20-day celebration of Modi’ birthday to mark his 20 years in office as a Chief Minister and later as the Prime Minister.
Neither the BJP nor the Prime Minister are concerned about the death of over 4.44 lakh people in the country, due to COVID and the death of over 600 farmers, protesting against the farm laws and demanding the scrapping of the laws. For the BJP and the Prime Minister, the projection of Modi as the best is more important than the well-being of the people. It does not matter to either how various decisions and failures of the government prick the masses; whether it is the demonetisation, the farm laws, the inflation, the failure to create jobs and so on. For them the winning the elections matters.
Modi, would have sent a better signal to the people, if he had said that his birthday should not be celebrated in the light of the suffering of the people due to the COVID pandemic. But he will not have all that, he likes to be projected as a mass leader. He likes to make an event of everything he does or everything related to him, may it be his birthday or his visit to his mother. Luckily for the nation, he has not had diarrhea!
He is addicted to publicity and seeks it every minute. The celebration of his birthday in a manner planned by his party is like the situation of an alcoholic, whose children are starving at home and whose wife is waiting for him to come back with money, instead the man goes out with his friends to drink. The people of the nation, Modi is supposed to lead, may suffer, but he has to be in the limelight, without a mention of those suffering. In that, he is no different from that alcoholic.
Such a person can only be what Mani Shankar Aiyar had called Modi a few years ago—neech.