A day after India objected to the use of mathematical models by the World Health Organisation (WHO) claiming 4.7 million "excess" COVID deaths in the country, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday took a jibe at the government stating "Science does not lie, Modi does".
According to the WHO report, more than 4.7 million people in India are thought to have died because of COVID-19.
"47 lakh Indians died due to the Covid pandemic. NOT 4.8 lakh as claimed by the Govt. Science doesn't LIE. Modi does," tweeted Rahul Gandhi.
The Congress leader demanded Rs 4 lakh mandatory compensation for the one losing their lives during the pandemic.
"Respect families who've lost loved ones. Support them with the mandated Rs4 lakh compensation," Gandhi added in his tweet.
New estimates from the WHO show that the full death toll associated directly or indirectly with the COVID-19 pandemic between 1 January 2020 and 31 December 2021 was approximately 14.9 million (range 13.3 million to 16.6 million).
Meanwhile, India has strongly objected to the use of mathematical models by the WHO for projecting excess mortality estimates concerning coronavirus and has said that authentic data is available.
Refererring to excess mortality estimates, the Health Ministry said in a statement that the validity and robustness of the models used and methodology of data collection are questionable.
Director General of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Dr Balram Bhargava on Thursday said the country has systemic data pool and it does not need to rely on "modelling, extrapolations and press reports" for ascertaining COVID-related death.
Speaking to ANI, Dr Bhargava said, "When we had COVID deaths occurring, we did not have a definition of deaths. Even WHO did not have one. If one gets positive today and dies after two weeks, will it be COVID death? Or the dies after two months or six months - will it be COVID death?"
( With inputs from ANI )
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