Covid patients are cremated at Manikarnika Ghat crematorium in Varanasi on April 17.
PTIBengal is heading to the sixth round of polling on Thursday amid unparalleled scenes of death and desperation brought about by the second wave of Covid-19. Congress leader P. Chidambaram put matters in perspective through a series of tweets on Wednesday: “Voters in… Bengal have a great opportunity to speak for the entire country.”
He added: “Witness the ambulances with patients and mortuary vans with dead bodies lined up outside hospitals and crematoriums. What changed since April 2020? If anything, things have become much worse. An election is to hold the government accountable. The BJP is solely responsible for the medical catastrophe that has fallen on the country. The hopes of the entire nation are in the hands of the voters of Bengal.”
The Narendra Modi government and the BJP have been accusing the Congress and the Nehru-Gandhi family of playing politics during the crisis and not doing enough to promote the vaccines.
Ambulances with Covid-19 patients awaiting admission queue up outside Government Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad on April 21.
PTIA stable patient at Government Civil Hospital, Ahmedabad, is moved to another hospital to make space for critical Covid-19 patients on April 18.
PTIA Covid-19 patient receives primary treatment outside the Kanpur LLR Hospital on April 18.
PTIMayo Hospital in Lucknow announces on April 21 it is unable to get oxygen supply after requests to the CM and the Centre.
Naeem AnsariNotices outside a vaccination centre in Mumbai on April 20 announce they have run out of stocks.
PTIFamily members of Covid-19 patients wait to refill cylinders with medical oxygen at a plant in Lucknow on April 20.
PTIBodies are lined up for cremation on the pavement outside the Hindon river crematorium in Ghaziabad on April 16.
PTIRelatives perform the last rites of a Covid-19 victim as other pyres burn around them at a crematorium in Ahmedabad on April 19.
PTIA volunteer packs urns with ashes of Covid-19 victims in Surat on April 14 to be taken to Haridwar.
PTIRelatives of a Covid-19 victim grieve outside the mortuary of a Delhi hospital on April 21.
Prem Singh