'Those who lost loved ones...': Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal responds to task force report on oxygen

A Supreme Court-appointed task force, in its preliminary report, has indicated that the Delhi government "exaggerated" the city's oxygen need, during the second Covid-19 wave, by at least four times.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Friday that those who lost their loved ones due to shortage of medical oxygen in the Capital "should not be called liars." Kejriwal posted this on Twitter in an apparent response to a report that his government "exaggerated" the city's oxygen needs by four times during the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.

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"My crime is that I fought for the breath of the 20 million people of Delhi," a rough translation of Kejriwal's tweet posted in Hindi, read. "When you were addressing election rallies, i was awake all night arranging for oxygen. I fought and pleaded to arrange oxygen for people," he added, referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's election rallies in West Bengal during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, which triggered fierce criticism.

"People have lost their loved ones due to shortage of oxygen. Please don't call them liars. They're feeling very bad," Kejriwal's tweet read further.

The report, which was submitted to the Supreme Court, was prepared by a panel constituted by it in May when the Capital was facing an acute shortage of liquid medical oxygen. Though preliminary for now, it has triggered a war of words between the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).