'Mumbai has no river to dump Covid bodies': Mayor Kishori Pednekar's jibe at UP, Bihar

Mumbai is not underreporting Covid-19 deaths, Mumbai mayor Kishori Pednekar said on Thursday claiming that Mumbai will never do that. With her clarification came a veiled attack on BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where corpses were found floating in the river and some were washed up on the river bank. "We don't have rivers to dump the bodies," the mayor said.

Mumbai Mayor on allegations of hiding death toll

The clarification comes on a day India's Covid-19 tally shot up because Bihar revised its Covid-19 fatalities. The revision accounted for around 4,000 additional deaths which were added to the total toll on Thursday. After the revision, the total number of Covid-19 deaths in the state was 9,429 till Tuesday. Before the revision, the number was 5,458. It is not known when did these deaths took place.

Maharashtra, the worst-affected state by the pandemic, is witnessing a steady improvement in the Covid-19 situation with daily cases and daily tolls nosediving. Mumbai's toll has dropped below 30 in the past few days. BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis earlier accused the civic body and the Maharashtra government of fudging mortality data.

In May, reports of bodies floating in the Ganga in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar surfaced. It was suspected that they died of Covid and their bodies were dumped in the river. On May 17, the Centre asked Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to prevent the dumping of bodies in the Ganga and any other river and called media reports"undesirable and alarming".

Stay tuned with the newstrack to get fastest updates. Click @englishnewstrack to follow us on Facebook and @newstrackmedia to follow on Twitter.