Amid the State's downward trend in fresh infections, the Congress party today accused the ruling-BJD in Odisha of hiding data about COVID deaths and demanded to make the ‘actual data’ public.
Addressing a presser, Congress leader Sudarsan Das claimed that while an RTI reply says 1288 bodies were cremated at the Satya Nagar crematorium here in Bhubaneswar in the month of September, the government report says only 342 bodies were cremated.
"During this Covid pandemic, there has been an increase in the number of fatalities due to Coronavirus but the government is hiding the fact. The State government is denying the deaths due to Covid-19 infection," he alleged.
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He further said that the Odisha government should refrain from hiding the number of fatalities due to Covid-19 by showing such deaths due to cardiac attack, liver disease or accidents. "It must make the actual data of COVID related deaths in the State public," he said.
While demanding financial assistance of Rs 4 lakh for the families of the COVID victims and to make the entire process online to avoid irregularities, Das said that by hiding the facts, Odisha government will only invite another pandemic.
Meanwhile, the ruling party leaders could not be contacted to comment on the allegations brought by the Congress leader.
The State today witnessed 4,852 new positive cases. However, despite the dip in the new cases, the fatalities due to Covid-19 continues to surge as 47 more patients succumbed to the disease on June 12.
With this, the death toll has jumped to 3,257 while the active cases in the State now stands at 62,515.