Congress leader P Chidambaram on June 8 withdrew his remarks criticizing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement on the Centre earlier allowing states to buy vaccines because states had demanded it.
“The underlying message was that the central government learned from its mistakes. They made two cardinal mistakes and made effort to correct those mistakes, but as usual bluff and bluster, the Prime Minister blames the Opposition for the mistakes he committed,” Mr Chidambaram told media.
“Nobody, but nobody said that Centre shouldn’t procure vaccines. He (PM) now blames state governments saying – they wanted to procure vaccines so we allowed them. Let us know which CM, which state government, on what date demanded that he should be allowed to procure vaccines,” he asserted.
However, Chidambaram later backed down after a February letter by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee surfaced online.
“I told ANI ‘please tell us which state government demanded that it should be allowed to directly procure vaccines’ Social media activists have posted the copy of the letter of CM, West Bengal to PM making such a request. I was wrong. I stand corrected,” Mr Chidambaram tweeted.
