Modi praises UP for less COVID deaths than 4 European nations

Drawing a comparison between the COVID management in Uttar Pradesh with that in the European countries of England, France, Italy and Spain, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday (June 26) said the state which has a population of the four countries put together, has only a fraction of their death due to effective management.

The prime minister made the statement while interacting with villagers from the state through video conferencing as part of the launch of Atmanirbhar Uttar Pradesh Rojgar Abhiyan, which seeks to promote local entrepreneurship with industrial associations to provide employment.

“These countries at one time had conquered the world and were the biggest powers. But if you add up the populations of all these countries, it comes to 24 crore, but in India, Uttar Pradesh alone has 24 crore people. How effective Uttar Pradesh has been can be seen from the fact that the four European nations together had 1,30,000 deaths due to COVID-19. But here, the number of deaths is 600. It shows that Uttar Pradesh has been handling the pandemic in an effective way,” he said.

Related news: PM launches Atma Nirbhar UP Rojgar Abhiyan; promotes employment

Referring to the scenario in the United States, he said, “You must have seen reports of America. They have everything but even then 1.25 lakh lives have been lost till now.” “If Yogiji and his team had not made proper preparations, today 85,000 people would have lost their lives if we compare with other countries. We can say that the hard work done by the UP government saved so many lives,” he said.

In his interaction with villagers from six districts of the state, Modi repeated his advice to maintain do gaz ki doori (social distancing) and weak a mask to kept COVID at bay.

He also applauded the efforts of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister in tackling the COVID crisis while managing the homeward movement of migrant labourers to the state. He said the vast preparations made by the Uttar Pradesh chief minister saved at least 85,000 lives, something that was unthinkable before 2017.

“Yogiji understood the gravity of the situation. Instead of complaining, he and his team went on a war footing to ensure that 240 million people could be safe and control the spread of the disease as much as possible. When his father passed away, Yogiji put the people of Uttar Pradesh above his personal loss and continued to work to ensure that hospitals, beds, and other facilities like testing centres were opened,” Modi said.

The prime minister referred to the pre-2017 period when the state was mostly ruled by non-BJP governments, saying, “whichever government or system was in place, the circumstances were such that they would have avoided the challenge, but the Adityanath government took it seriously and worked on a war footing.”

He referred to a stampede in Allahabad during the Kumbh Mela, when a former prime minister was in power who was also an MP from the city, saying the PM made all efforts to brush the “deaths of hundreds of thousands” pilgrims under the carpet.

Related news: Unemployed graduates look for MGNREGA jobs in UP

Modi, who interacted with villagers of six districts through common services centres and Krishi Vigyan Kendras , said this achievement has been managed when 30 to 35 lakh labourers have returned to the state by hundreds of Shramik T.