The opposition Congress and BJP in Kerala have reiterated their allegations against the Left government and said that there is a grave mismatch in the COVID-19 deaths reported in the state. They accused the state government of projecting a 'fabricated' figure to save its face in the fight against the pandemic. The opposition has also said that many who died of COVID-19 have been shown to have died of other causes, thereby depriving them of any compensation that could be given in the future. The fresh allegations came a day after Health Minister Veena George had said the state government has nothing to hide with regard to the pandemic-related casualties.

Leader of opposition VD Satheesan on Friday alleged that there has been a mismatch in the death toll and that the Health Minister was trying to save the government from getting exposed to the deceptive numbers of COVID deaths. "I wonder why the government should hide the facts. There is no need for the Government to think that revelation of real figures would taint its image," Satheesan said. He even accused the state government of conspiring to project a fabricated figure hiding factual numbers.

TNM had reported last week that Kerala has reported excess deaths and many of them could have been COVID-19 related deaths. Our calculations showed that many of these deaths do not reflect in the state;s COVID-19 bulletin. Read our story here. 

Meanwhile, BJP state president K Surendran alleged that only one-third of the actual COVID-19 deaths was reflected in the government records. Alleging that the Pinarayi Vijayan government had excluded COVID-19 deaths from the official records in order to stage a campaign that "Kerala is Number One", he said the state was violating the Indian Council of Medical Research norms and the central policy in this regard since the beginning.

Amidst opposition criticism, Veena George had on July 1 had said the state government had nothing to hide with regard to deaths due to COVID-19. A new transparent and decentralized online system has been put in place to report deaths due to the virus, the minister said, a day after the Supreme Court directed the National Disaster Management Authority to issue guidelines in six weeks for ex-gratia compensation to families of those who died of COVID.

"Kerala is a state where 100 percent of births and deaths are reported. It is not as if the state decides on which death to be categorized as due to Covid or not", she had said.

With PTI Inputs