SP, BSP, and Congress accuse Yogi Adityanath government of ‘criminal negligence’, send separate fact-finding teams to Gorakhpur govt hospital
The Opposition parties — the Congress, SP and BSP — on Saturday held the Uttar Pradesh government “responsible” for the death of over 30 infants at a state-run hospital in Gorakhpur, and demanded the resignation of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Health Minister Siddharth Nath Singh.
Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, who visited Baba Raghav Das Medical College in eastern Uttar Pradesh, along with party colleagues, expressed deep anguish over the death of children, allegedly due to shortage of supply of liquid oxygen, in a span of 48 hours.
“This incident took place due to the laxity on the part of the state government. We hold the state government responsible for it. The health minister and the health secretary must immediately tender resignation. The doctors should not be blamed for this,” Azad said.
Demanded a high-level inquiry into the incident, the SP and BSP too have announced their decision to send teams to Gorakhpur.
“As many as 60 children have died in a government hospital in Gorakhpur in the last six-seven days. This is an example of gross criminal negligence of the BJP government,” BSP chief Mayawati said in a release.
Blaming the Adityanath government for the tragedy, Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav claimed that a shortage of oxygen supply in the hospital led to it.
Stating that the exact toll was not available with the opposition, Yadav said, “We have received information that as the children were dying, their families were being taken out of the hospital in a hush hush manner.”
Earlier, Congress spokesperson Manish Tiwari said the chief minister and the health minister should resign taking “moral responsibility” for the deaths.
“There are clearly two dimensions to it, that of criminal culpability of all those responsible —the hospital administration, the oxygen supplier and the district administration which is supposed to exercise superintendence over the hospital, and the other is the moral responsibility of the CM.”
Modi monitoring
PM Modi is constantly monitoring the Gorakhpur situation and is in touch with central and state authorities, his office said on Saturday.
MoS for Health Anupriya Patel will take stock of the situation, the PMO said.
Sonia pained
Congress President Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi expressed deep shock at the tragedy.
Sonia said, "This is paining. My heart goes out to the families of the innocent children.”
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