West Bengal: Mamata Banerjee hits out at BJP, accuses the party's IT cell of spreading fake news over COVID-19 deaths

Last week the West Bengal government had scaled down the COVID-19 deaths from seven to three, attributing the deaths to comorbidities.

Without naming the BJP, the Chief Minister said the IT Cell of a political party was trying to malign the state health department.

While giving credit to the health workers of the state, she said it was not the time for petty politics and added that her government never pointed out the failures of the BJP-led central government in dealing the crisis.

Taking a swipe at PM Modi, Banerjee said, they(BJP) were doing politics by clanging utensils and bursting crackers, but her government was not.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s Information and Technology (IT) cell head Amit Malviya accused West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of hiding tally of COVID-19 amid the discrepancy in figures between the ones released by the Centre and the state government.

Malviya on Monday lashed out at Banerjee on Twitter saying, "What is Mamata Banerjee hiding? No medical bulletin from the Bengal government on 2nd, 3rd and 5th Apr. Curiously number of Covid related deaths missing in the bulletin released on 4th.. Read this along with Mamata admin’s diktat on a Committee deciding reason for Covid deaths."

As per the Indian government's update, 80 people in West Bengal including 10 cured and three deaths have been infected with COVID-19 while the state government in its last bulletin which was issued on Saturday said 49 people in total were tested positive for Novel Coronavirus.

When asked about the difference in figures, West Bengal Chief Minister Banerjee's chief secretary Rajiva Sinha said, "We cannot comment on which figure media will accept. We will give bulletins everyday."

However, the state government did not update the figures in their website on Sunday drawing ire from the opposition parties including the BJP. Stirring row last week, Sinha held a press conference to counter the report of West Bengal government's panel of doctors which had stated seven people died in Coronavirus in the state.

In a press brief, the chief secretary had said the total number of deceased stood at three as the other four were initially admitted to hospital with some other ailments but later contracted the pandemic virus.

"Whether the four other people died in Coronavirus or not is yet to found out," Sinha had said.

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 in the country, the Mamata Banerjee government took a slew of measures including the invocation of the provisions of Epidemic Disease Act, 1897, so that no patient can escape while undergoing treatment for Coronavirus.

Besides creating a 200-crore fund to combat the deadly virus, the state government has dedicated 59 hospitals across West Bengal for COVID-19 treatment including four in the city of Kolkata.