BHOPAL: On Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s birthday (September 17), when India reportedly set a vaccination record by successfully rendering over 2.51 crore jabs of the Covid vaccines, the BJP ruled Madhya Pradesh not only vaccinated living ones but also rendered protective jab to a woman who died of Covid-related complications on May 1.
On September 17, those administered 29 lakh doses of the Covid vaccines in MP, included Vidya Sharma, who died of Covid related complications on May 1 in Agar-Malwa district, around two months after she received her first jab of the Covid vaccine on March 8.
“My mother Vidya Sharma got the first dose of the Covid vaccine on March 8 at the government hospital in Agar, but in April end she was infected with Covid and succumbed to the same viral infection at the government hospital on May 1. More than four months after her death, I received a text message on my phone at 8.02 pm on September 17, which informed me that my mother was successfully administered the second dose of the vaccine. I was even able to download her vaccination certificate in which it was mentioned that she had been successfully administered the second dose at Town Hall in Ward No. 4 of Agar town on September 17,” Vidya Sharma’s son Ashutosh Sharma told The New Indian Express.
While showing his mother’s death certificate as well as the September 17 Covid vaccination certificate, Ashutosh said, “Such incidents suggest that instead of actual vaccination, the under-pressure government staff is indulging in acts of fudging numbers to show that targets are being achieved on the ground.”
In the same Agar-Malwa district, 26-year-old Pinki Verma received a text message on September 17 only about having been vaccinated with a second dose 110 km away in the Jhalawar district of Rajasthan, despite having not taken the jab. “I got the first dose on June 5 and was scheduled to get the second dose on September 7, but couldn’t get the second dose owing to some major illness. But on September 17, I got a text message over the phone informing me about my successful second dose of vaccination somewhere in Jhalawar,” she said.
In the MP capital Bhopal also, 54-year-old Leela Sutar got the first dose of the Covid vaccine on March 25, but despite not having been vaccinated with the second dose, she was informed that she had been successfully vaccinated with the second dose on September 17 in Bhopal.
The state’s medical education minister Vishvas Sarang, when asked about these episodes, termed them as some sporadic incidents due to clerical errors. “A few incidents might have happened due to clerical errors, which will be rectified,” he said.
Earlier in June, similar anomalies had been reported in MP, where a 13-year-old boy from Bhopal was shown as successfully vaccinated in records, even when to date the vaccination of those aged between 12 and 18 years is yet to start in the country.