LUCKNOW: The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh has earned praise for handling of the novel coronavirus crisis from an unexpected quarter — a senior journalist from Pakistan.
Fahd Hussain, the Editor of Pakistan’s ‘Dawn’ newspaper, tweeted how Uttar Pradesh had strictly enforced the lockdown while Pakistan did not. Hussain tweeted a graph to compare Covid-19 death toll in Pakistan and Uttar Pradesh to explain how the two handled the crisis and what was its impact.
As per the graph, Pakistan has a population of 208 million and UP 225 million but the neighbouring country had Covid-19 death rate almost seven times higher than that of UP. Fahd also compared Pakistan’s performance with another Indian state Maharashtra.
Here’s another graphic comparison this time between Pakistan and Indian state of Maharashtra (prepared by an expert). This shows how terribly Maharashtra has performed in relation to Pakistan. Shows the outcome of bad decisions & their deadly consequences #COVIDー19
(1/2) pic.twitter.com/6AHenrznIs— Fahd Husain (@Fahdhusain) June 7, 2020
He tagged a comparative graph with another tweet and said: “While the 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 and Maharashtra did wrong to learn the right lessons.”
The tweet comes a day after Hussain’s comprehensive article ‘Message that matters’ wherein he dealt at length with how Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government is struggling with its message on Covid-19 and how it should come out of the crisis.
The tweet from Pakistan comes as a time when the opposition in Uttar Pradesh has been attacking the Yogi government over its handling of the corona crisis.