After being slammed by Singapore officials and the Ministry of External Affairs, the AAP government continues to further its claim of the Covid-19 ‘Singapore variant’ in India.
Coming out in support of his party leader, Delhi Health Minister Satyendra Jain said, “Wrong to say, there is no #COVID19 strain particular to Singapore. There are many strains in India, Will give clarification on the Singapore strain soon. But we assure you there is a new strain in India.”
Delhi Health Minister Satyendra Jain says, “Wrong to say, there is no #COVID19 strain particular to Singapore. There are many strains in India, Will give clarification on Singapore strain soon. But we assure you there is a new strain in India. @rupashreenanda shares details pic.twitter.com/YdIE2xnb8M
— News18 (@CNNnews18) May 19, 2021
Delhi’s Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia too has parroted the same narrative, counter-attacking the central government over ‘focusing on Singapore’. Deflecting from the topic, Sisodia attacked the BJP for not focusing enough on the issue, despite the fact that neither Kejriwal nor his ministers Jain and Sisodia, presented any factual evidence of the existence of a ‘Singapore strain’.
After unnecessarily creating confusion and dragging the name of a friendly neighbourhood nation over unverified claims, AAP leaders continue to play politics, using the narrative for political attacks on the BJP.
Our focus is on kids, not Singapore. BJP is only concerned for Singapore … All we demanded is timely action: @msisodia, Delhi Deputy CM. pic.twitter.com/cdkijeed9H
— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) May 19, 2021
The undeterred reaction comes as a shocker after Singapore took strong objection to Delhi Chief Minister’s unscrupulous claims citing it as ‘very dangerous.’
Arvind Kejriwal had spread misinformation
On Tuesday, Kejriwal had taken to Twitter to claim that a new variant of Covid-19 was found in Singapore and appealed to Indian government to shut down flights to and from Singapore to not let the ‘new variant’ reach India.
Hours after Kejriwal put out unverified claims pertaining to the so-called Singapore strain, the Singapore government refuted all the claims made by Arvind Kejriwal and stressed that no new coronavirus strain had been detected in the city-state.
There is no truth in the assertion that there is a new COVID strain in Singapore. Phylogenetic testing has shown that the B.1.617.2 variant is the prevalent strain in many of the COVID cases, including in children, in recent weeks in Singapore.https://t.co/uz0mNPNxlE https://t.co/Vyj7gyyzvJ
— Singapore in India (@SGinIndia) May 18, 2021
MEA said ‘Delhi CM does not speak for India’
The official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs revealed that the Singapore government had called the High Commission raising a strong objection to Kejriwal’s statement.
MEA had made it clear that Kejriwal has no authority to either pronounce Covid variants or decide India’s civil aviation policy.
Singapore Government called in our High Commissioner today to convey strong objection to Delhi CM’s tweet on “Singapore variant”. High Commissioner clarified that Delhi CM had no competence to pronounce on Covid variants or civil aviation policy.
— Arindam Bagchi (@MEAIndia) May 19, 2021
Union Minister Dr S Jaishankar too responded sternly to Kejriwal’s unverifiable claims.
However, irresponsible comments from those who should know better can damage long-standing partnerships.
— Dr. S. Jaishankar (@DrSJaishankar) May 19, 2021
So, let me clarify- Delhi CM does not speak for India.
Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan too took to Twitter to suggest that politicians should stick to facts and slammed Kejriwal’s statement reiterating that there is “no Singapore variant.”
Kejriwal had spread multiple misinformations in tweet. Apart from claiming about the ‘Singapore strain’ he had also asked the government to cancel flights to the city-state. Civil Aviation minister Hardeep S Puri had clarified that there are no civilian flights operational between India and Singapore since March 2020.
