New Delhi: Former CM and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis today dashed off a letter to Congress President Sonia Gandhi about Covid-19 situation in Maharashtra and said she should rather advise the states where her party is in power about how to handle the pandemic.
Fadnavis’s letter follows Sonia Gandhi’s missive to PM Modi about alleged slip- ups in the handling of the COVID-19 outbreak by the Centre.
In his letter, Fadnavis pointed out high mortality rate in the state and alleged that the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government was neglecting Vidarbha, Marathwada and North Maharashtra in the fight against the pandemic.
“While criticizing the Centre, Gandhi should also give advice to the states ruled by the Congress,” Fadnavis said.
“Mumbai model” of handling the pandemic, which has won praise from the courts as well as the Centre, was only “about doing more rapid antigen tests” (against RT-PCR tests) while reducing overall testing, he claimed.
“Covid-19 deaths in the metropolis are being “suppressed” as 40% of fatalities are categorized as deaths caused by other reasons, Fadnavis claimed.
“Of 4,000 deaths being reported on a daily basis in the country, 850 are from Maharashtra alone….There has been no focus on Vidarbha, Marathwada and north Maharashtra. It seems they are left to their fate,” he said.
Cong calls it ‘cover-up attempt’ for Centre’s failures
Responding to Fadnavis’ missive, the state Congress said it was an attempt to cover up the Centre’s failure.
Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole said the Modi government had turned the country into a “funeral yard”.
“Fadnavis should show the guts to write to the Prime Minister,” he said in a statement.
“When other countries were vaccinating their citizens at accelerated speed, “Modi was busy in election campaign”, Patole said.
Despite difficulties, Maharashtra has managed to vaccinate 1.15 crore people, highest in the country, he said.
Maharashtra accounts for as much as 22 per cent of coronavirus cases in the country, 31 per cent of deaths and 14 per cent of active patients at present, Fadnavis wrote.
