Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (SP)

Bengaluru, May 17: "The state government is doling out lies as regards the corona tests performed and deaths related to the disease. It should immediately step up the quantum of tests and clearly record the deaths caused out of coronavirus," demanded Siddaramaiah, leader of the opposition in the assembly.

Siddaramaiah wrote a letter to the chief minister (CM), pointing out that compared to 2019, over 93,812 deaths were recorded in 2020 which have been attributed to four different diseases. He claimed that all these were in reality, corona-related deaths, and exhorted the government to accurately record the deaths instead of concealing the truth.

Siddaramaiah (left) and B S Yediyurappa

As compared to 2019, till December 31, 2020, 38,583 more people died of heart attack, 28,647 due to age-related ailments, 4,262 due to paralysis. But the state government says that till December 31, 2020, only 12,090 died of coronavirus infection. But the government's planning and statistics department has put the figure at 22,320 for the year 2020, he pointed out.

"The additional chief secretary of the state recently said that it is confirmed that over 50 percent of the people dying of heart attack in the state were confirmed to have been suffering from corona infection. I have been repeatedly saying the same thing. But the government has so far not shown the guts to reply to my charges," he stated.

Siddaramaiah said that as per the experts, if the virus wave has to subside, positivity rate should be less than five percent. He said that in fact the quantum of infection is increasing instead of declining, duly pointing out that only a couple of districts have been showing less than 20 percent infection. He wanted to know from the CM the basis on which he is claiming that the infection is coming down.