Accused of ‘suppression of facts’ on corona, Mamata updates Bengal’s statistics
Drawing flak from the Centre and Union minister Babul Supriyo over allegations of “supression of facts” about the Covid19 death toll in West Bengal, the Mamata Banerjee government updated its statewide statistics on Thursday.
The state government’s health expert committee on Covid-19 informed that the deadly virus so far claimed seven lives, as reported by this newspaper a day before. It added that the total number infected stood at 53 persons including 16 new cases in the last 24 hours.
The chief minister was however conspicuous by her absence during the briefing at the state secretariat: Nabanna. On Wednesday afternoon she put the death toll at three only while spewing venom at the media for reporting three more
deaths which had taken place by then. According to sources, the state government faced criticism from the Centre at a meeting for not revising the number of deaths.
Earlier, Babul alleged on Facebook, “Mamata Banerjee has gone completely berserk in suppressing FACTS & figures of Corona..she is putting entire Bengal & beyond, at severe risk..There is no reason why she should get the benefit of the doubt given that she is a repeat offender in doing this & had done that even during the dengue deaths too when doctors all over Bengal were threatened to NOT mention ‘Death by Dengue’ in the Death Certificates! While the number of cases is going up alarmingly & we need to be more & more careful.”
He added, “And now our Egotistical ‘Honble’ WB CM her Royal Highness Madam Mamata Banerjee, after putting the entire State into high risk by underplaying Data regarding COVID19, has also SKIPPED Honble PM’s video conferencing with ALL CMs of the country. No words of condemnation will be enough!!”
Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar also slammed Ms Banerjee for not attending the PM’s meeting.
Later state chief secretary Rajiva Sinha however claimed that only three patients, not seven as mentioned by the panel, died.