No COVID-19 in 2018, yet pictures of Ganga shore similar : Yogi Adityanath dismisses rumours about inflated death figures due to coronavirus in state

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. (Photo: IANS)


The Yogi Aditynath government in Uttar Pradesh is facing serious attacks from the opposition parties who are saying that the administration is deliberately trying to hide death figures by burying the dead bodies along the Ganges in Sangam city Prayagraj. Wanting to dismiss the ‘rumours’, Adityanath published a piece of news posted in a Hindi daily, showing that three years ago there was neither a disaster like Corona nor lack of wood, yet the pictures were the same.

This tradition of burying dead bodies along the Ganges has been going on for a long time.

“There was no coronavirus, yet three years ago his was the picture of the banks of the Ganges,” Adityanath tweeted the headline of the news article.


The Hindi daily has published news carrying the photograph taken by its photographer on the Sangam shore on 18 March 2018.

According to the news, these pictures are before the Kumbh of 2019. Through these photographs, an attempt has been made to show that the phenomenon started during the coronavirus pandemic. And these pictures went viral on social media. However, the news article dismissed the rumour by clearly pointing out that this is an age-old tradition.

According to News 18 Hindi, Prayagraj DM Bhanuchandra Goswami has said that the tradition of burial of dead bodies at Shringveshwar Phaphamau Ghat in Sangam city is years old. The District Magistrate said that we neither have to hurt the tradition nor pollute the environment.

A day after recording less than two lakh cases of Covid, India on Wednesday once again breached the mark with 2,08,921 fresh cases while 4,157 fatalities were reported in the last 24 hours, Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry said.

On Monday, India crossed a grim milestone of three-lakh deaths due to the coronavirus infections, thus becoming the world’s third country after the US and Brazil to cross three-lakh deaths.

In the last 15 days, India has recorded over 60,000 deaths.

India’s overall tally of Covid-19 cases now stands at 27,11,57,795 with 24,95,591 active cases and 3,11,388 deaths so far. On Tuesday, India recorded 1,96,427 cases — the lowest since April 14.