The BJP on Friday accused the State Government of playing with facts regarding the extent of corona infections in Bengal saying it took two strong letters from the Inter Ministerial Central Team (IMCT) for the State Government to cough up the truth about the exact number of infected people and real number of deaths due to the dreaded virus in the State.
Referring to the objections being raised by his party on earlier occasions on “how the numbers are being fudged”, State BJP president Dilip Ghosh said that the Government should have been honest enough to come out with the genuine numbers (of deaths and infection) instead of suppressing the facts.
The BJP was referring to the two letters of inquiry dashed off by the visiting IMCT to State Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha asking the Government to explain the total number of victims that had corona infections.
The Government later said that the total number of deaths due to corona infection stood at 18 that included three deaths in the past 24 hours. However, it also said that there were 39 other deaths where the patients had corona infections alongwith comorbidity.
“This means that the total number of deaths should be taken as 57 instead of 18,” a senior CPI(M) leader and a former MP said adding “our leaders like Biman Bose and Suryakanto Mishra were arrested a few days ago when they were protesting against suppression of facts.”
Incidentally the Government had filed an FIR against CPI(M) central committee member Sujan Chakrabarty for reporting false cases in the social media.
The Chief Secretary on Friday said that the total number of deaths due to corona were 18 while the total number of active infected patients were 385. This figure included the new 57 cases in the past 24 hours.
Among the seven districts from where reports of corona infections were coming are Kolkata, Howrah, East and West Midnapore, Hooghly and East Burdwan, he said.
The State had conducted a total number of 8,933 tests with 930 tests being conducted in the past one day, the Government said.
Meanwhile, the IMCT on Friday visited a large part of Kolkata and Howrah to gather reports of the extent of corona infections. The team visited New Town, MR Bangur Hospital and Salkia and Dumurjala in Howrah, sources said.