RJD takes a swipe as Bihar govt defends Covid death toll revision

PATNA: A day after 3,951 fatalities were added to official Covid death toll in the state, health minister Mangal Pandey on Thursday defended the state government, saying the audit was conducted to “provide relief to affected people”.
“When second phase of Covid pandemic happened, we learned from various sources that there could be more deaths due to the disease. We took the feedback from everyone with complete sincerity and worked proactively.Talks were held with all district magistrates and they were asked to furnish information regarding institutionalised deaths due to Covid as per the guidelines of the Centre. Our motive was to reach out to people affected by the pandemic and provide them the necessary relief,” Pandey said.
Amid the hearings in Patna high court on Covid scenario in the state, the health department had formed committees at medical college and district levels in the third week of May to assess deaths due to Covid. The committees had been asked to furnish consolidated reports of Covid deaths under their jurisdiction in 10 days.

Meanwhile, the revision of Covid death toll triggered a political slugfest on Thursday, with the RJD accusing the Nitish Kumar government of “botching up” the fight against the pandemic and ruling members defending it as an administrative matter that has been corrected.
Though figures were drastically revised to 9,429, it was not specified as to when these additional deaths had taken place though a district-wise breakup was provided.
Lapping up the issue, leader of opposition in state assembly Tejashwi Yadav accused the state government of “mismanaging” the fight against coronavirus by presenting “farzi” (fake) data.
“Nitishji had tried to bury the truth about many Covid victims. When caught, he suddenly added up 4,000 figures in a day,” Yadav tweeted. He was referring to the recent order given by the Patna high court to reverify the Covid fatalities tally. “When the government itself is ‘farzi’, the data will also be ‘farzi’,” Yadav said in another Twitter post. He claimed that “20 times more deaths have happened due to Covid in Bihar than the data presented by the Nitish government”.
JD(U) spokesperson and MLC Niraj Kumar said, “After rall, it’s the Bihar government which has come out with a revised figure after fresh verification exercise...had there been any intention to hide something, such an exercise would not have been taken up.”
The JD(U) leader took a swipe at Yadav for “remaining absent” from the ground when people are battling the coronavirus surge and instead making political statements against the state government on social media platforms.