The pace of the Covid-19 vaccination drive has gained momentum in the Saifai block of Uttar Pradesh’s Etawah district after Samajwadi Party (SP) founder Mulayam Singh Yadav took his first jab on June 7 at a private hospital in Gurugram. BJP’s UP unit had appreciated this move and said SP workers and its president, Akhilesh Yadav, should take inspiration from him. A day later, Akhilesh appealed to his party workers and others to take the vaccination as soon as possible. Interestingly, in January this year, Akhilesh, who too was infected with Covid in April, had declared that he would not take the BJP vaccine.
But this U-turn by the Azamgarh MP seems to have had a positive impact on areas where SP voters are dominant. As soon as the information reached villagers, they started queuing outside the designated centres in order to get the shots.
Till May this year, less than an average number of people were taking the jabs in Etawah, Kannauj, Mainpuri and Azamgarh, but there has been a sharp uptick in vaccination numbers over the last 10 days in the districts which are strongholds of the SP vote-base.
Mulayam Singh’s home district is reporting around 10% vaccination coverage so far with over 1.4 lakh people getting inoculated against a total population of 19 lakh. So far, 1,47,138 people have been vaccinated in the home district of the Yadav family.
While till June 5, an average of 2, 500 people were getting vaccinated daily in Kannauj, since June 12, more than 5, 000 people on an average are getting the jabs in the Lok Sabha constituency of Akhilesh Yadav. When News18 visited the district’s government medical college on June 15, a decent queue was spotted for vaccination. A group of Yadav families who had come from Gursahaiganj said they were inspired to get the shot after looking at Mulayam’s vaccination picture.
The same is the situation of Mainpuri, the assembly constituency of Mulayam Singh Yadav. The weekly vaccination from May 29 to June 4 has nearly doubled from 6,322 to 11, 716.
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