Last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had lauded UP's handling of the second Covid wave.
The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister's Office today said a record 26,03,631 people had been vaccinated against Covid today. Citing CO-WIN data, it tweeted that the state had by now inoculated over 5.13 crore people overall.
Tweeting a screen shot of the Co-WIN dashboard with the data, Yogi Adityanath's office said, "Under the guidance of the Respected Prime Minister and the leadership of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath Maharaj, the mega Covid vaccination drive was actively continuing."
The second state on the Co-WIN site's list was Maharashtra, way behind at a little over 2.21 lakh doses for today. The overall figure for the state was over 4.52 crore.
However, when compared in percentage, Uttar Pradesh may have covered only little more than 21 per cent of its population of over 24 crore. Whereas, Maharashtra, may have covered some 40 per cent of its population of 11.2 crore.
A report by Oxford Economics had last month suggested that, unlike other smaller states, Uttar Pradesh was yet to reach a "safe level", that is, at least 30 per cent of the population having received both doses.
On Monday, Chief Minister Adityanath himself received his second dose of COVID-19 vaccine in Lucknow.
Last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had lauded Uttar Pradesh's handling of the second Covid wave, calling it "unparalleled".
The Prime Minister's praise aside, the UP government had faced widespread criticism -- from medical experts and opposition leaders -- over its handling of the pandemic, especially after visuals of bodies of suspected Covid patients floating in the state's rivers made headlines, along with those of bodies buried along their banks, in May and June.
The UP government had refuted reports that those deaths were linked to the pandemic.