The national capital is battling one of the worst pandemics of its existence. When doomsday predictions are being made about the number of Covid-positive cases Delhi might have by the end of July, the Municipal Corporations of Delhi (MCDs) has announced the war of the numbers against the Delhi government. The municipal bodies are claiming that the Delhi government is massively understating the number of death figures due to Covid-19. The MCDs put the Covid death figure at 2,098, which stands in sharp contrast to 980 deaths claimed by the AAP government.
The difference, which is more than double of what the Delhi government is claiming, has set the alarm bells ringing. The chairman of the Northern Municipal Corporation Standing Committee, Jay Prakash, told The Daily Guardian that the MCD is ready to give all the figures if the Delhi government wants to know. “In South Delhi, 1,080 people have died due to coronavirus, while North Delhi has 976 casualties. In East Delhi, 42 people have died due to Covid-19 infection,” he said.
Bhupendra Gupta, chairman of the standing committee of South Delhi Municipal Corporation, told The Daily Guardian that he has all the figures and the three municipal corporations have different death toll figures. There is no scope for any kind of mistake in them because the death toll cannot be reduced or increased. Gupta also said that Delhi’s Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal should appoint a nodal officer for the death figures.
North MCD Mayor Avtar Singh said: “Beds were reserved and Covid-19 wards were set up in March in MCD hospitals. But till now, the Delhi government has not used them. MCD had also proposed to the Delhi government to make four of its hospitals Covid-19 treatment hospitals. MCD has done the work of cleaning and sanitisation in the times of coronavirus crisis. The super specialty hospital of MCD, which has been taken over by the Delhi government, has not even been linked to the app.”
Delhi BJP president Adesh Gupta said that from the very beginning, Delhi BJP had been saying that the Delhi government was hiding the statistics of death due to coronavirus. Delhi Congress state president Anil Chaudhary, however, blamed both the BJP and AAP for this and said: “The Delhi government is hiding the coronavirus death toll. On the other hand, the BJP-ruled Northern Municipal Corporation is not able to give salary to coronavirus warriors in their hospitals. Corona is spreading rapidly in the capital due to failures of the AAP government and the BJP.”
Meanwhile, the Delhi government has released a statement on the death figures given by the MCDs. The Kejriwal government has set up a Death Audit Committee comprising senior doctors who are working impartially towards assessing deaths caused by coronavirus.