The General Secretary of India's main opposition party Congress, Randeep Surjewala, on Tuesday slammed Indian Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan for promoting CORONIL, an untested Ayurvedic medicine from Patanjali Ayurveda for the treatment of COVID-19.
The Congress politician took to Twitter and blamed the minister for misleading, misinforming and misguiding people.
He also shared a news article and wrote that if the same incident would have happened somewhere else, the minister would have to resign by now, but such things do not happen under a Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government.
— Randeep Singh Surjewala (@rssurjewala) February 23, 2021
The comments from Surjewala came a day after the Indian Medical Association (IMA) demanded an explanation from the minister, accusing him of "promoting" CORONIL.
In a statement, the national association of doctors has also said it will write to the National Medical Commission, highlighting the "blatant disregard" of the Indian Medical Council's code of conduct.
Last week, Indian Yoga guru Baba Ramdev launched CORONIL in the presence of Vardhan and Minister for Road Transport & Highways and Minister for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Nitin Gadkari.
Meanwhile, as per the government data, India added a total of around 10,584 new cases in the last 24 hours, bringing the total tally to above 10.10 million. A total of 78 new fatalities have been recorded, boosting the death toll to 156,463. However, the number of recovered patients is now over 10.07 million.