Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Primary Education Minister Satish Dwivedi here on Wednesday claimed that only three teachers lost their lives during poll duty for panchayat elections last month from COVID-19 instead of over 1,600 claimed by the opposition parties.
"The death of 1,621 teaching staff due to COVID-19 during their duties for panchayat poll is a mischievous claim of some employees unions," Mr Dwivedi said.
He said only three teachers have died from the virus and their families would be given Rs 30 lakhs as compensation along with a government job and other facilities.
The State Election Commission, which conducted the panchayat polls, too had denied such large-scale death of teachers due to COVID-19.
The SEC had said that the district authorities after thorough the investigation has reported to the commission that only three teachers on Panchayat poll duties have died due to COVID-19.
But on the other hand, the opposition Samajwadi Party, Congress and Bahujan Samaj Party stick to their claims.
The SP president Akhilesh Yadav in a tweet on Wednesday said, " In order to avoid giving compensation to the deceased teacher's families, the ruthless BJP government of UP is lying that only 3 teachers have died in electoral duty while the figures given by the teachers union is more than 1,000."
"The BJP government is making a world record of great lies," Mr Yadav said sarcastically.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in her tweet said," Insensitive to the list released by the UP teachers association of 1,621 teachers who died while doing duty in the panchayat elections, the UP government is telling only three teachers died."
"The teachers did not get safety kits and proper treatment and now the government is taking away their honour even after the death," she alleged.
BSP president Mayawati in her tweet said, "complaints of death due to corona infection of teachers and other government employees performing panchayat election duty in UP are becoming common."
"But due to a lack of proper investigation, they are not getting proper government help, which is grossly inappropriate. The government should immediately pay attention to this," she further said.
The Uttar Pradesh government received a backlash of conducting panchayat polls last month despite the virulent COVID-19 wave. The opposition has been repeatedly questioning the government over the alleged deaths while the latter refuting all such claims again and again. (UNI)