Congress leader Rahul Gandhi castigated the centre over the lack of Oxygen and the deaths due to Covid19 in the second wave. He also released a white paper as a measure of suggestion to the central government.

On Tuesday, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that 90% of Covid-19 deaths in the second wave were “needless” because the patients could have been saved if oxygen or drugs were available. He demanded a commission to look into “what went wrong” in the central government’s strategy. He further emphasised that a Covid-19 compensation fund must be created to help families who lost their bread-earners.

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Rahul Gandhi released a white paper on Covid-19. This paper was prepared by the Congress’ research department. He also said that “vaccination should be done on war footing”, because inoculating 60% or 70% of the population is not sufficient.

Gandhi said, “There are two types of Covid-19 deaths. Deaths that are needless in the sense those could have been saved. The other type of death is when there is high comorbidity. In the second wave, 90% deaths were needless because oxygen was not available.”

Gandhi further added, “The PM’s tears cannot wipe off the tears of the victims. People know that oxygen could have saved their near and dear ones. But the PM did not take the issue seriously. He had to fight elections.”

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The modified vaccination rules were withdrawn in favour of a centralised vaccination campaign, in which the government administered free vaccine to all. Following this, on Monday, India administered over 8 million vaccine doses.

Rahul Gandhi maintained that “good work has happened yesterday (Monday)”. But, he cautioned that vaccination has to be a process and not “a series of events”. Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala added an important point of comparison with the UPA-2 regime. Surjewala said that during former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s regime, 120 million children were administered pulse polio vaccine on a single day in 2012.

Centre pleaded in the Supreme Court that it does not have money to compensate for Covid-19 deaths. Reacting to this plea, Rahul Gandhi said that the government must announce a compensation package for the poor.

Gandhi said, “The Centre is making ₹4 lakh crore through cess on petrol and diesel. It has taken money from the people. They can give any name they want but a compensation plan is required.” An economic assistance process is also a significant part of the white paper published on Tuesday.

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Rahul Gandhi said that aim of the white paper is to provide the government with suggestions so that it can be ready when the third wave of the pandemic comes. He said, “The government should not repeat the mistakes it did in the first and second waves. It should be ready with infrastructure to tackle the third wave.”