Siliguri, April 2021: At a campaign rally for the ongoing West Bengal Legislative Assembly election, speaking in his classic campaign rhetoric, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “all the large gatherings at the Kumbh Mela were not only planned, but also organised in such a way as to maximize herd immunity. Not only that, even the large gatherings at our campaign rallies in the state have been scientifically organised.”
The Prime Minister is believed to have grown weary of the Principal Scientific Adviser’s principles and advice, and is therefore heeding to other sources unknown to the public. The Prime Minister’s Office has said, “Oh yeah, we made many mistakes. We gave vaccines to retirees sitting at home instead of poor daily wagers who’re dying due to the curfews and lockdowns. Our website doesn’t work properly and cannot handle lakhs of people logging on at once. But, this. This is not a mistake.”
While under fire for vaccine shortages, the government has decided to fast track approvals for COVID-19 vaccines that have been granted emergency use authorisation by foreign drug regulators. “Baba Ramdev asked me to push his vaccine through, but I said no,” said PM Modi. “I still believe in our CDSCO^ and NEGVAC^.”
The opposition claims that this is an old habit of Mr. Modi. “He takes a bad situation and acts like it was a brilliant plan all along. He’ll just come out, look at an enormous disaster, and say it is all alright with a straight face. He’s just faking it,” said INC spokesperson, Abhishek Singhvi, and grumbled, “and somehow making it.”
Prime Minister Modi has been known to sometimes fudge the truth and other times butcher it completely. For example, he claimed that the export of honey had doubled in 2018 while it had only increased 17% year-on-year.
With the Prime Minister lying left and right, it makes one wonder if the 2016 demonetization really happened or not. (It definitely did.)
^CDSCO = Cetral Drugs Standard Control Organization, NEGVAC = National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19