New Delhi, April 7: Supporting demands for expanding the Covid vaccination coverage, Congress leader and former Union Minister P. Chidambaram on wednesday also said that the need now is that there should be walk-in vaccinations without any pre-registration. "IMA has called for universal vaccination. Several CMs have demanded universal vaccination. Yet the central government says there is no need for universal vaccination.

"The need of the hour is walk-in vaccination to all age groups without any pre-registration," he said in a series of tweets. However, he noted that "because of its unscientific and stubborn stance, the government has allowed the number of infections to gallop every day". "A grave catastrophe awaits the country," he said. Maharashtra Clocks All-Time Single-Day High With 59,907 COVID-19 Cases; Mumbai Registers Over 10,000 Coronavirus Infections.

Continuing his attack, he tweeted: "There is no government of any democratic country in the world that has been so callous as the Modi government. "From demonetisation to the botched vaccination programme, Indians are paying a huge price for the WRONG policies of the BJP government."

India recorded 1,15,736 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, the biggest-ever single-day surge since the onset of the pandemic early last year, taking the overall tally to 12,801,785 on Wednesday, according to the Health Ministry.

Active cases crossed the 800,000 mark in the last 24 hours and now stands at 843,473, comprising 6.59 per cent of the total infections. Reports suggest that India is now the fourth most affected country in the world in terms of active cases. Meanwhile, the death toll increased to 1,66,177 on Wednesday with 630 new fatalities.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 08, 2021 12:01 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).