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New Delhi, June 6 (PTI): Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday took a swipe at the Modi government, saying it is fighting for a blue tick while leaving people to become "aatmanirbhar" (self-reliant) to get Covid vaccines.
Hitting back at the Congress leader, the BJP said he should get out of social media and work on the ground. The party also asked him to speak to chief ministers of Congress-ruled states regarding alleged scams and irregularities in the Covid vaccination programme there.
Gandhi's remarks came a day after outrage over the removal of 'blue tick' badge from the personal accounts of Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu and RSS top functionaries, including Mohan Bhagwat, by Twitter, only to restore it later.
"The Modi government is fighting for the blue tick. If you want a Covid vaccine, then be self-reliant," he said in a sarcastic tweet in Hindi, using the hashtag "#Priorities".
Taking a dig at Gandhi, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said doing politics on Twitter is his (Gandhi's) "most important subject" and "biggest platform". Patra asserted that the Modi government has done an admirable job in spearheading such a big inoculation programme and providing free ration to the poor.
Meanwhile, the former Congress president also talked about stopping language discrimination after a Delhi government hospital asked its nurses not to converse in Malayalam. The hospital order has been revoked.
"Malayalam is as Indian as any other Indian language. Stop language discrimination," Gandhi said in another tweet.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also shared the concern and posted the order of the Govind Ballabh Pant Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education and Research warning the nursing personnel to use only Hindi and English for communication, else serious action will be taken.
"This order is a violation of the basic values of our country. It is racist, discriminatory and utterly wrong," she said in a tweet in Malayalam, saying Malayali nurses are risking their lives in Covid times to save people.
"This order is also an insult. We owe them a debt of gratitude and respect. It should be withdrawn as soon as possible and an apology should be published," she demanded.
In another tweet, Priyanka alleged that the Modi government reduced oxygen beds by 36 per cent, ICU beds by 46 per cent, ventilator beds by 28 per cent between September 2020 and January 2021.
"Is the health of Indian citizens less important than the Central Vista project?" she asked, alleging that the government has declared the project as an essential service with people working day and night to complete it by 2023.
"When every expert in the country, the Parliamentary Committee on Health and their own sero-surveys warned them that additional beds would be needed for an inevitable second wave," she said as part of her 'ZimmedarKaun' (Who is responsible) campaign.