Bihar's revised COVID death data of 9,429 sparks major row

The latest data presented by the Bihar government on Covid deaths in the state has triggered a major controversy and has put the Centre into an uneasy situation.

The health department of Bihar has reported 9,429 deaths due to the coronavirus. The data which was put out on Wednesday evening reveals 3,951 more deaths compared to a day before. The total deaths till Tuesday due to Covid in Bihar was 5,458.

The sudden spike in death number has affected the central all India tally which suddenly jumped to 6,148.

The health department has given the breakup of deaths in all 38 districts of Bihar but it has not mentioned dates and time or when these deaths occurred. Patna has registered 2,303 deaths which is the highest in the state followed by Muzaffarpur (609) and Begusarai (316).

After the mismatch, a senior officer of the health department said that the matter is under investigation. The detailed report is expected to come later in the evening.

The health department has also issued mismatch data about the numbers of patients recovered. On Tuesday, it presented 7,01,234 recoveries from the Covid infection while it published 6,98,397 recoveries, a day later. The recovery rate on Tuesday was shown at 98.7 per cent while on Wednesday it was 97.65 per cent.

The Bihar government is facing flack from opposition leaders for presenting such data mismatch.

Jan Adhikar Party (JAP) has slammed the Bihar government accusing it of corona death scam.

"Who is making death scam in Bihar. Nitish Kumar government should answer it," JAP released a written statement on Thursday.

"Our leader Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav has pointed out that the Bihar government is hiding the number of deaths. He further pointed out that there were 1,000 deaths per day in April and May this year," Said Raju Danvir, national youth wing president of JAP.