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Soni Mishra
Soni Mishra

GORAKHPUR

Gorakhpur tragedy: Congress leader Ghulam Azad questions Yogi's apathy

PTI8_16_2017_000046B Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad addresses a press conference at AICC headquarters in New Delhi on Wednesday | PTI

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath did not meet him or call him up even once to take up the state of healthcare system in Gorakhpur, claimed senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad. Before his tenure as the Rajya Sabha's leader of opposition, Azad was the Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare.

"He [Adityanath] is a four-time MP from Gorakhpur. And he is the chief minister now. However, in the five years that I was health minister, he did not meet me or call me up even once," Azad told reporters in Delhi.

"This shows how much interest he had in the hospital and the people of his constituency," he said.

Azad also attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying that instead of making a "passing reference" to the death of scores of children at the Baba Raghav Das hospital, allegedly due to a break in supply of oxygen, he ought to have expressed regret.

The senior Congress leader also alleged that the Adityanath government switched over to an Allahabad-based company for supplying oxygen to the hospital; a company from Gorakhpur was earlier tasked with the supply.

"A Gorakhpur company was supplying oxygen till March 30. Who decided on the sudden shift and why?" he asked.

He reiterated the Congress' demand that the episode be investigated by a sitting judge of the Supreme Court, instead of a probe that is under the purview of the Modi government.

Azad further said that, during his tenure as health minister, he had visited Gorakhpur twice, and around 22 teams of officers were dispatched to the city at different times to assess the situation. He also said that the Manmohan Singh government had cleared a Rs 4038 crore plan to tackle Japanese Encephalitis (JE) in five states. Most of the children who died at the Gorakhpur hospital suffered from JE.

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Topics : #Yogi Adityanath

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