Centre, Madhya Pradesh government failed to stop COVID-19 deaths: Kamal Nath

Indore, May 05: Senior Congress leader Kamal Nath on Wednesday held the Centre and the Madhya Pradesh governments responsible for the COVID-19 fatalities which he attributed to the failure to take timely measures to deal with the "second wave" of the pandemic.

"Should we blame the public for the deaths due to COVID-19? Both the Centre and the state governments led by the BJP are responsible for the fatalities. They are playing politics over dead bodies. They have no concern for the common people," Nath told reporters.

He said the national and international media had been alerting about the second wave of coronavirus for the last three months, but no preparations were made in advance. "..Rather India was exporting medical oxygen and Remdesivir injections that time," the Madhya Pradesh Congress chief said.

Targeting the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government, Nath said the administration was indulged in politics and distributed Remdesivir injections to leaders of the ruling BJP. "The injections are being sold in the black market," he alleged.

Attacking the Union government over the vaccination program, Nath said, "The government has no adequate stock of vaccines but still it announced the launch of the inoculation drive for the people in the age group of 18 to 44 years".

Nath reiterated his allegation that the announcement to launch the drive for the younger lot was made in a bid to attract voters to the BJP during the recently-held Assembly elections. "Today the people are dependent on God and not on the government.

I have prayed at the famous temple of Lord Hanuman in Chhindwara (Nath's constituency)," he said. As of Tuesday, Madhya Pradesh's COVID-19 tally stood at 6,12,666 with 6,003 fatalities, the state health department had said.