‘Coronavirus won’t peak in UP’: Akhilesh jeers at state’s handling of Covid crisis

Akhilesh Yadav has questioned state’s claims on capacity to treat coronavirus

Akhilesh Yadav has alleged that the UP government is not conducting enough number of Covid-19 tests and therefore the claims regarding successful management of the disease were misleading. The former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh also questioned the UP government’s data on the number of beds available to treat coronavirus patients.

Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav has questioned state’s claims of its efforts to contain coronavirus. (PTI Photo)

“Coronavirus disease will never peak in the state of Uttar Pradesh because the honourable chief minister of the state is not getting enough tests conducted. How is it possible to assess when the disease is going to peak if enough tests are not conducted. Look at Delhi, they are going to conduct tests,” Akhilesh said drawing a comparison.

Earlier this month, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Aditynath had told Hindustan that the state, as of June 5, had 32 labs in both private and public sector hospitals to test Covid samples. The state was testing around 12,000 people every day on an average and aimed to increase it to 20,000 by the end of June, he had said.

Akhilesh also contested Adityanath’s claim that work on several new medical colleges in the state was in progress. Akhilesh said the state government should name the new medical colleges it has built during its tenure.

“The government must tell us if they have built any new medical college in the state. All they have done is to change the name of existing medical colleges,” the former UP CM said during an exclusive interview with Hindustan editor in chief Shashi Shekhar.

On June 5, UP CM Aditynath had said that his government had managed to double the number of government hospitals in the state in the last three years.

“There were only 12 government hospitals in the state since 1947 but the current UP government, since 2016, has started or is in the process of starting 30 new medical colleges, there are two functional AIIMS in UP right now-- in Gorakhpur and Rae Bareli,” Adityanath had said.

Akhilesh also questioned the state government’s claims on the number of beds available for the treatment of Covid cases. “BJP government claims to have readied one lakh beds for treatment of Covid patients. I am wondering how they reached the landmark after initially claiming to have only 36,000 beds,” Akhilesh asked.

He suggested that there were only a few large medical hospitals in the state and therefore the claim of 10,000 Covid beds appeared to be out of sync with the reality.

“Uttar Pradesh’s biggest medical colleges include KGMU and Ram Manohar Lohia institute in Lucknow and there are a few others including one in Saifai, Agra and Meerut. I want to know how many beds are ready in Lucknow alone,” Akhilesh said.