Tejashwi Yadav said while addressing a press conference at the party office in Patna (File)
Slamming the Bihar government, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav on Thursday accused it of "lying" and "manipulating" the COVID-19 numbers in the state.
While addressing a press conference at the party office, he said, "There used to be 3,000-3,500 COVID-19 cases when there 10,000 tests were being conducted. Now when the state is testing 75,000 samples for COVID-19 even then these numbers are restricted to 4,000. This means that the government is lying and manipulating. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is focusing on the increasing number of rapid Antigen testing to save his face."
"As per the Bihar government data, on an average 6,100 RT-PCR tests are being conducted which means that only 10 per cent of the total COVID-19 tests are being conducted through the RT-PCR method. We demand an increase in RT-PCR testing," he added.
Mr Yadav also accused the Central government of meting out step-motherly treatment to Bihar.
"Centre has given Rs 890 crore to various states and Union Territories under COVID-19 package. However, it has not given any money to Bihar. Even after knowing the seriousness of COVID-19 in the state, Centre had meted out such step-motherly treatment to Bihar," he said.
According to the Bihar Health Department, there are a total of 90,553 COVID-19 cases in the state including 60,068 discharged, 30,010 active and 475 deaths.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)