NEW DELHI: After Union health minister Harsh Vardhan and his deputy resigned on Wednesday, the Congress said it is a candid submission of the government's "monumental failure" in managing the Covid-19 pandemic.
Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram took a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying if things go right, the credit will go to him and if they do not, it will fall on the minister concerned.
Another senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said Vardhan has been made a scapegoat for the failures at the highest level.
"The resignations of the Union health minister and the MoS Health is a candid confession that the Modi government has utterly failed in managing the pandemic," Chidambaram wrote on Twitter.
"There is a lesson for ministers in these resignations. If things go right the credit will go to the PM, if things go wrong the minister will be the fall guy. That is the price a minister pays for implicit obedience and unquestioning subservience," the former Union minister said.
Ramesh said, "Poor Dr Harsh Vardhan, a good man, has been made a scapegoat for monumental failures at the highest level -- nowhere else."
Congress's chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said Covid management in the country is headed by the Prime Minister and asked why was Vardhan being made the scapegoat.
He said the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), which is headed by the Prime Minister, is responsible for the "criminal mismanagement" of Covid-19.
"Will the PM take responsibility for his failures? Or will the PM only make Dr Harshvardhan the scapegoat for the PM's failures?" Surjewala wrote on Twitter.
Vardhan, whose handling of the Covid-19 crisis drew flak from critics, resigned from the Union Council of Ministers on Wednesday, hours before a cabinet expansion.
