New Delhi: The Congress on Thursday cited a recent media report to allege “criminal culpability” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former Health Minister Harsh Vardhan and senior officials of the ICMR in fudging Covid-19 data “to build a false narrative that everything was normal” ahead of the second wave, and demanded a judicial inquiry against them.
Citing the New York Times report which quoted former scientists of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to claim political interference in giving out data on Covid-19 and related deaths, senior spokesperson of the Congress Ajay Maken said this is a very serious issue and should be probed by a sitting judge of the Supreme Court or a high court.
The government has rejected the media report with Niti Aayog member (health) V K Paul describing it as “out of context report that is not desirable”.
ICMR chief Balram Bhargava said, “This is a provocative, attention seeking article published at a time when India is doing good and our vaccination is excellent and it is diverting attention. All the issues raised are dead ones and probably do not merit any attention.” —PTI

Press Trust of India