Lucknow: Pakistan’s leading newspaper ‘Dawn’ editor Fahd Hussain on Sunday lauded Yogi Adityanath-led UP government for its handling of the coronavirus cases.
The senior journalist also said UP was strict with lockdown to contain the spread of coronavirus. While comparing UP’s handling of coronavirus casualty rate with that of Pakistan, Hussain said the Indian state has a lower mortality rate than Pakistan despite having higher population density than Pakistan.
He tweeted: “While Indian state of UP has a lower mortality rate than Pakistan, Maharashtra has a higher rate despite younger population and higher GDP/capita. We must know what UP did right & Maharashtra did wrong to learn the right lessons.”
Hussain tweeted a graph to compare the coronavirus death toll in Pakistan and that in UP to explain how the two handled the pandemic.
As per the graph which Hussain tweeted, Pakistan’s death toll due to virus is much higher than that of UP although Pakistan’s population is 208 million and UP has 225 million.
The Pakistani editor said, “We both have roughly the same population profile & literacy. Pakistan has lesser density/km and higher GDP/capita. UP was strict with lockdown. We were not. See difference in death rate."
The Hussain’s appreciation led to a cheer in the BJP camp which was facing heavy criticism from opposition parties in the state for its-what they called as failure-in handling the pandemic and migrant issues.
However, Congress took potshot over the development. Surendra Rajput, Congress Spokesperson said, “We don't need appreciation from Pakistan. The BJP government in UP has failed on almost all accounts of the Covid-19 management. Testings have not been scaled up as desired though the number of cases have crossed 10,000. Several patients have died as hospitals denied them treatment or handled them badly.”
