All Indians Will Get Free COVID-19 Vaccine: BJP Union Minister

The Opposition slammed the BJP for promising free vaccines to Bihar alone, and playing politics over the pandemic.

Union Minister Pratap Sarangi

(Image: PTI/Altered by The Quint)

Three days after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced free COVID-19 vaccines in Bihar as a manifesto promise for the upcoming elections in the state, Union Minister Pratap Sarangi on Sunday, 25 October, said that all Indians will be provided with free COVID-19 vaccine.

This comes after the opposition parties slammed the BJP for promising free vaccines to Bihar alone, and playing politics over the pandemic.

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced that all people will be provided free of cost vaccines. An estimated 500-odd Rupees will be spent on vaccination of each person,” Sarangi told the reporters, reported PTI.

Sarangi was addressing a campaign meeting in poll-bound Balasore.

Sarangi, the union minister of state for animal husbandry, dairy, fisheries and micro, small and medium enterprises said this in response to Odisha Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Minister, RP Swain, who had questioned Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, over his silence on their party BJP's stand on free COVID-19 vaccination for the people of Odisha.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday, 22 October, had promised to provide free COVID-19 vaccination for all the people in Bihar once ICMR approves a vaccine.

“As soon as the coronavirus vaccine will be available for production at a mass scale, every person in Bihar will get free vaccination. This is the first promise mentioned in our poll manifesto,” reported ANI.

(With inputs from PTI)