‘If Vaccines Not Produced Yet, Should We Hang Ourselves?', Asks Union Minister

Gowda, who was responding to posers on the vaccine shortage, said the Centre has been doing its job sincerely and honestly, adding some shortcomings have, however, surfaced.

Sadananda Gowda, Union Minister for Chemicals & Fertilizers. (Getty Image)

Bengaluru: Union Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister DV Sadananda Gowda on Thursday asked whether the people in the government should hang themselves for their failure to produce Covid-19 vaccines.

“The court has with good intention said everyone in the country should get vaccinated. I want to ask you, if the court says tomorrow that you have to give this much (of vaccine), if it has not been produced yet, should we hang ourselves?” PTI quoted Gowda as saying.

Gowda, who was responding to posers on the vaccine shortage, said the Centre has been doing its job sincerely and honestly, adding some shortcomings have, however, surfaced.

“Practically, certain things are beyond our control. Can we manage them?” he asked.

The Union Minister further said the Centre has been doing its best to ensure that things improve in a day or two and the people get vaccinated.

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Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national general secretary CT Ravi, who was also present with Gowda, on his part said that things would have been worse if the arrangements had not been made well in time.

“If proper arrangements were not made well in advance then there would have been fatalities 10 times or 100 times more… But our preparations failed because of the unimaginable spread of coronavirus,” he said.

The BJP leader while responding to questions regarding the courts pulling up the Centre on the Covid-19 said the “judges are not all-knowing (sarvajna)”.

“Whatever is available with us, based on that the technical advisory committee will recommend how much (vaccine) has to be distributed. Based on their report, we will take a decision,” he added.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Bombay High Court had observed that several lives could have been saved if the Centre had started door-to- door vaccination programme for the elderly and bed-ridden a few months ago.

A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice G S Kulkarni reiterated the court’s earlier order of April 22 in which it asked the Union government to relook at its decision to not initiate a door-to-door vaccination programme.