COVID19: Congress bashes Kerala's Left govt over rising cases

Kochi: The Congress on Friday (August 27) continued its attack on the Left government and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan over the rising coronavirus cases, saying the COVID-19 management has been 'hijacked' by the officials and the state was hiding details about deaths and claiming a low fatality rate.

"We had raised a serious allegation that the government was deliberately showing a low death rate related to COVID-19. The government has been hiding around 25,000 deaths in Kerala and has been claiming that the death rate is low in the state. This means that the government has been hiding the death rate in the state to take credit," Leader of the Opposition in the state assembly, V D Satheesan told reporters here.

Reiterating his charge that the COVID-19 management in Kerala was an "utter failure", Satheesan said Kerala has been reporting 68 per cent of the total cases in the country.

"Kerala has the highest TPR (Test Positivity Rate) in the country. But the chief minister still claims that the Kerala model is the best. It's an unfortunate situation. There is no role for the chief minister or the health minister here. Everything is decided by some officials. They have hijacked the COVID-19 management. The CM and the health minister are parroting the officials," Satheesan alleged.

He demanded to know why the Chief Minister, who earlier used to call a press meet "for minor reasons," was not addressing the concerns of the people now The Congress leader also alleged that the Covid First-Line Treatment Centres (CFLTC) in the state has been closed down and asked the state government to reopen them for effective COVID-19 management.

On Thursday, senior Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala had alleged that the state government had failed to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and demanded that the Chief Minister apologise to the people. He had also alleged that the "carelessness" of the state was the reason behind the rise of the COVID-19 cases.

Since July 27, after restrictions were relaxed for a few days on account of two festivals, Kerala has been logging more than or close to 20,000 almost every day. On Thursday, the state reported 30,007 cases.

(With agency inputs)