Rahul Gandhi on Monday said the government was hiding the truth about Covid, amid widespread concern that the numbers of infections and deaths were far higher than projected.
“Like jobs and economic growth, the central government is not allowing the real coronavirus data to come in the public domain. Not the pandemic, but the government has definitely controlled the truth about pandemic,” he wrote on Twitter.
The Congress ran a social media campaign on Monday to highlight the mismatch between ground reality and official figures. It cited reports from different states to show the suppression of data. One post said: “In 13 days in April, official figure says 41 deaths while news reports suggest more than a thousand deaths.”
Another said: “On April 14, Gujarat total death figure was 73 while crematorium reports suggested 124 deaths in Surat and Gandhinagar alone.”
Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath said in an interview: “The whole attempt is to hide real data. While testing by private labs has been stopped to hide the number of infections, deaths are grossly underreported. In Bhopal one day, the official figure was four while reports put it at 112. Till a few days ago, there was an attempt to deny oxygen shortage. I challenge chief minister Shivraj Chouhan to tell me about one health facility in the entire state where everything is available — oxygen, medicine, injections, beds and doctors.”
Reacting to Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s claim of no oxygen shortage in his state, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said on Sunday: “What should be the punishment for lying to the people in this hour of crisis? Put yourself in the position of that patient who is told the hospital can’t give admission because there is no oxygen. Patients are asked to leave because there is no oxygen.”
She also confronted Adityanath for threatening to invoke the National Security Act and seize the properties of those spreading rumours about oxygen shortage.
“There is an oxygen emergency in the entire state. Please file a case against me, seize my property. But please for God’s sake try to understand the gravity of the situation and start working towards saving lives,” she said.
Rahul also commented on the raging discourse on vaccines, saying: “Enough of debate. Every citizen must get free vaccine — that’s all. Don’t make India a victim of the BJP system.”