Shivraj Singh Chouhan slams Kamal Nath for his attack on Madhya Pradesh government

Bhopal, May 24: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan slammed Congress leader Kamal Nath over his remarks on state government's handling of coronavirus cases.

"The Congress is preparing to set fire. Kamal Nath, will have to answer. Are you celebrating death? I want to ask Sonia Gandhi if she agrees with Kamal Nath's fiery statement?", the chief minister said.

Earlier, Kamal Nath accused the state government of under-reporting COVID-related deaths and claimed that over one lakh people had died from the infection in March and April across the state. "I have calculated myself, information of 26 districts were on newspaper and I gathered information from rest of the districts. In March and April, 1,27,000 bodies reached crematoriums. According to me, 80 per cent of them were of COVID victims," Kamal Nath said.

An FIR has already been registered against the Congress leader for allegedly creating panic over the coronavirus pandemic through his remarks, a police official said. The case against him was registered based on a complaint lodged by Bhopal BJP district president Sumeet Pachouri and two BJP MLAs- Vishwas Sarang and Rameshwar Sharma-, among others, he said.

In the complaint, the BJP leaders alleged that Kamal Nath had said that, "Corona, which has spread in the world, is being known as the Indian variant of the virus."