'Advise MVA govt': Fadnavis complains about COVID situation in Maharashtra to Sonia Gandhi

BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis urged Congress president Sonia Gandhi to give appropriate advice to the Maharashtra government pertaining to the COVID-19 situation. In a letter addressed to Gandhi in wake of her suggestions to PM Modi, he opined that the handling of the pandemic cannot be ignored. For instance, Fadnavis highlighted that Maharashtra accounted for 22%, 14% and 31% of India's total novel coronavirus cases, active cases and deaths respectively. He lamented that the Maha Vikas Aghadi government was blaming the Centre for merely hiding its own failures.

To buttress his point, the ex-Maharashtra CM mentioned that the state had received 1.8 crore vaccines, over 7 lakh Remdesivir injections, a daily oxygen supply of 1750 MT and an adequate quantity of ventilators, BiPAP machines and oxygen concentrators. Moreover, he alleged that the state government had failed to announce any relief package for the poor, farmers and underprivileged sections of the society during the coronavirus-induced lockdown. Referring to the allocation of Rs.6 crore to an external agency for handling Deputy CM Ajit Pawar's social media accounts, he decried that the priorities of the ruling dispensation. 

In the letter, Fadnavis wrote, "While 'death due to other causes' category constitutes for 0.8% of the deaths in districts other than Mumbai, the percentage for Mumbai is 40%. Every possible attempt is being made to hide the number of deaths in Mumbai. While there are approximately 88,000 deaths in Mumbai every year, 2020 saw the addition of 20,719 deaths. Out of these, 11,116 deaths have been designated as COVID-19 deaths. Only in 2020, 9603 deaths have been suppressed. This pattern is continuing this year too."

"It seems that the Maha Vikas Aghadi government has left the fate of backward regions such as Marathwada, Vidarbha and North Maharashtra to God. No help is being rendered here. In rural areas, neither are beds available in hospitals nor treatment. People have to struggle for Remdesivir and oxygen," the former Maharashtra CM argued against conflating Mumbai with Maharashtra. 

COVID-19 situation in Maharashtra

On Friday, May 14, Maharashtra recorded 42,582 novel coronavirus cases taking the State's COVID-19 tally to 52,69,292. At present, there are 5,33,294 active cases in the State. With 54,535 COVID-19 patients discharged in the day, the number of recovered soared to 46,54,731. 850 deaths were reported on Friday. Out of the total deaths reported in the day, 409 occurred in the last 48 hours, 160 in the last week and the rest from the period before. Until now, a total of 78,857 persons in the state have died owing to COVID-19. 

So far, 3,03,51,356 samples have been tested for the novel coronavirus in labs operational across the state. While 35,02,630 persons are under home quarantine, 28,847 others have been admitted to institutional quarantine centres. The COVID-19 positivity rate, recovery rate and fatality rate in Maharashtra stand at 17.36 per cent, 88.34 per cent and 1.5 per cent respectively.