Just as the Modi government categorically denied in Parliament’s Monsoon Session any deaths due to oxygen shortages, the Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, on the contrary, said “it is wrong to say that no death happened due to oxygen shortages” and demanded a probe.

The BJP-led-centre though had come down hard on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for criticising the centre’s claim and reasoned that the statement given in Parliament was based on the data sent by the states who allegedly did not claim a single death due to medical oxygen shortages, the Delhi deputy chief minister Sisodia said, “to say that oxygen has not caused any death will be a mockery of those who have lost their family members.”

He said that he has written to the Union Health Ministry saying that it is difficult to find out the exact number of oxygen-related deaths without an investigation.

“We have written a letter to the Union Health Minister regarding this. It will be difficult to ascertain the number of deaths due to the oxygen crisis. But to say that oxygen has not caused any death will be a mockery of those who have lost their family members”.

Sisodia said the Delhi government had formed a committee to probe the deaths and prepare a report so that the affected families can be given a compensation of Rs 5 lakh each.

“But through the LG (Delhi’s Lieutenant Governor), the Centre did not allow that committee to be formed. We are sending the file again to the Delhi LG for approval. We will carry out the probe with full responsibility and even punish those who were guilty,” he added in the online media briefing.

Sisodia said that the capital has recorded over 25,000 deaths due to the infection and his government will have to probe how many of these were linked to the oxygen crisis during April and May. “We cannot say that there was no oxygen crisis. The families of patients, hospitals were sending out SOS messages for help at that time,” he said.

Earlier, Sisodia had said that the Delhi government has not received any letter from the Centre inquiring if any deaths in the national capital occurred due to oxygen shortage during the second Covid wave.

Recently, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, commenting on the Centre’s denial, had said, “The centre does not even have the total death figure since many dead bodies were thrown into the river in states like Uttar Pradesh.” She had questioned, “Who would account for those bodies?