‘Only centre’s responsibility: Rahul Gandhi on bodies of Covid victims found in Ganga

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday blamed the central government and said that it was the centre’s responsibility that people are leaving their loved ones in the Ganges river. He also said that people are doing so because of helplessness and it is not their mistake.

“I do not like sharing pictures of dead bodies. The country and the world are sad to see the pictures but the pain of those who left their loved ones on the banks of river Ganga should also be understood. The mistake is not theirs. The responsibility is not collective but that of the central government,” the Congress MP tweeted in Hindi. Earlier on Thursday (May 20) too, Gandhi had tweeted on the issue saying that the “Corpses that remain buried in the sands of Ganges says that the Modi system remains buried in the same sand,” targeting the Centre over the dead bodies that were found in the river.

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Daily death toll in India increased rapidly during the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country. Initial news reports about bodies, suspected to be of Covid-19 patients, found in the river in Bihar’s Buxar district emerged on May 10. As of May 12, the number of bodies recovered from Ganga in Buxar district increased to 82, HT had reported earlier. Similarly, many bodies were also discovered in the state of Uttar Pradesh, causing panic among the locals.

On May 16, hundreds of shallow graves were found along the banks of river Ganga in the Prayagraj district in Uttar Pradesh. Almost 1,000 bodies were either found floating in the river or buried in shallow graves along the river bank in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh between May 10 and 17.