Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal does not speak for India and he has no competence to pronounce on the variants of the SARS-Cov-2 virus or the civil aviation policy of the nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government conveyed to Singapore on Wednesday.
A tweet by Kejriwal warning against a new variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus being spotted in Singapore triggered protest from the government of the South-East Asian nation. It was also dismissed as irresponsible by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar himself.
The Modi Government, however, refrained from commenting on Singapore calling the B.1.617.2 variant of the virus as the one that was “first detected in India”. The Government had recently reacted to media reports on the World Health Organization (WHO) classifying the coronavirus variant B.1.617 first found in India as a “variant of global concern”.
The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare had issued a press release in New Delhi on May 12, terming the media reports as unfounded and underlining that the WHO had never called the B.1.617 as an ‘Indian Variant’ of the SARS-CoV-2.
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New Delhi’s High Commissioner to Singapore P Kumaran was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the city-state’s government on Wednesday.
The Government of Singapore conveyed to him its "strong objection" to the tweet by the Delhi Chief Minister.
“(The) High Commissioner (of India to Singapore) clarified that Delhi CM had no competence to pronounce on Covid variants or civil aviation policy,” tweeted Arindam Bagchi, Joint Secretary (External Publicity) and official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in New Delhi.
“Singapore and India have been solid partners in the fight against (the) Covid-19. Appreciate Singapore's role as a logistics hub and oxygen supplier. Their (Singapore’s) gesture of deploying military aircraft to help us speaks of our exceptional relationship,” Jaishankar posted on Twitter, tagging his counterpart in the South East Asian nation, Vivian Balakrishnan. The diplomat-turned-politician also stated that Delhi Chief Minister did not speak for India.
“However, irresponsible comments from those who should know better can damage long-standing partnerships. So, let me clarify – Delhi CM does not speak for India,” tweeted Jaishankar.
Kejriwal had on Tuesday tweeted that a new variant of the virus causing the Covid-19 had been spotted in Singapore and it had been found to be extremely dangerous for children and might come to India, where it could unleash the third wave of the pandemic. He urged the Union Government to cancel all flights between Singapore and India with immediate effect and to make arrangements for vaccinating the children.
Countering the attack on Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi, however, accused the BJP government in the Centre of exporting the vaccines that could have been administered to children in India.
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Had the Ministry of External Affairs taken initiatives to import vaccines from foreign nations as swiftly as it reacted to the statement by the Chief Minister of Delhi, it could have made doses available not only for adults, but also for children in India, tweeted Sisodia.
After the disastrous second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic started wreaking havoc across India, the Modi Government over the past weeks brought in 8,264 oxygen concentrators, 51,000 oximeters, 63 BiPAP and ventilators, six dialysis machines, 64 cryogenic tanks, 8,994 medical oxygen cylinders of 40 litre capacity and 1,862 cylinders with 10 litre capacity from Singapore.
The Ministry of Health of the Singapore Government was quick to react to the tweet by Delhi Chief Minister on Tuesday. It stressed in a press release that no Covid-19 virus variant was known as “Singapore Variant”.
“The strain that is prevalent in many of the Covid-19 cases in recent weeks is the B.1.617.2 variant, which originated in India. Phylogenetic testing has shown this B.1.617.2 variant to be associated with several clusters in Singapore,” it stated in the press release tweeted by the High Commission of Singapore in New Delhi.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Singapore Government issued a separate press release on Wednesday, expressing disappointment as it noted that even a prominent political figure (Delhi Chief Minister) had failed to ascertain the facts before making such claims.
Balakrishnan later thanked Jaishankar for his tweet calling Kejriwal’s statement "irresponsible". "Thanks @DrSJaishankar let’s focus on resolving the situation in our respective countries and helping one another. Nobody is safe until everyone is safe," tweeted the Foreign Minister of Singapore.