Arvind Kejriwal’s comment on Twitter stirs controversy and sparked off a diplomatic row. He took to Twitter on Tuesday saying “The new form of coronavirus in Singapore is said to be very dangerous for children. It could reach Delhi in the form of a third wave. My appeal to the Central government: 1. Cancel all air services with Singapore with immediate effect, 2. Work on vaccine alternatives for children on a priority basis”.
Kejriwal urged the government to cancel all the air services with Singapore owning to the “Singapore Strain.” Kejriwal’s tweet stirred a lot of criticism and anger from the Centre and the Singapore government as well.
The Singapore government reverted saying that there’s no Singapore strain. The strain that is prevalent there originated from India. Vivian Balakrishnan, Singapore’s Foreign Minister says to Kejriwal to “stick to the facts”.
The Singapore government said to the Delhi Commissioner to convey strong vehemence to the tweet to which the Indian High Commissioner said that CM has no competence to variants of Covid or any civil aviation policy.
Matters took a controversial hit when the Ministry of External Affairs made their statements slamming Kejriwal. S Jaishankar, India’s Foreign Minister took to Twitter and said such irresponsible statements from a CM can worsen deep and long-standing friendships of both countries. Adding to it, he also mentioned that Kejriwal “doesn’t speak for India”.
The Singapore Government reacted in disappointment saying that a prominent political leader should check into the facts before putting out statements.
Jaishankar also added that India and Singapore is solid partners during Covid Times. Singapore’s role as a logistics hub and oxygen supplier and their gesture to deploy the military aircraft speak of the solid bond these countries have which could not be tampered with by irresponsible comments like these.
In this deadly pandemic when India is falling short of supplies, a movie like this could jeopardize the relations with the country that is coming to the forefront and helping India.
The comment made by Kejriwal led to national embarrassment and everyone has to come up and give clarifications for it. But still, there are some reasons for which India has to be concerned with Kejriwal’s tweet as the Singapore government is vaccinating the children in the country that are aged 12-years and above.
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