Patna, (Samajweekly) Jan Adhikar Party (JAP) chief Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav on Wednesday urged chiefs of prominent parties to conduct a “corona census” to find out actual figures of deaths in the second wave of the Covid pandemic.
Citing an NYT report claimed that 42 lakh people died due to corona in the second wave but respective state and Central governments are saying only 3 lakh deaths, he, in series of tweets, said that there will be “huge consequences” if wrong data is presented by various governments.
“We cannot secure the social and financial aspect of victims who lost their loved ones in the second wave of pandemic. The political parties of the country should conduct Corona census in the country to find out actual number of deaths,” he said.
Though he tagged Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Maharashtra Chief Minister and Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK President M.K. Stalin, Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav, BSP supremo Mayawati, Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal, TDP chief N. Chandrababu Naidu, Janata Dal-S leader H.D. Kumaraswamy, and CPI-MLL chief Dipankar Bhattacharya, he left out RJD chief Lalu Prasad, Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United chief Nitish Kumar and any BJP leader.
Accusing various state governments of hiding the numbers “in a bid to save their image and failures”, and “snatching shrouds from the dead bodies buried on the banks of the rivers”, he said: “We would not expect much from them”. He also demanded states and Centre should compensate the deceased’s relatives with Rs 4 lakh immediately and also look after their rehabilitation.
Pappu Yadav earned a name helping common people in Bihar during the second wave, and came into the limelight for “exposing the wrongdoings” of public representatives and hospitals in Bihar, including finding over three dozen ambulances parked in the premises of BJP’s Saran MP, Rajiv Pratap Rudy. Following this, he was arrested in a three-decade-old kidnapping case.
