Former Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad today accused Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath of not taking any step as an MP of Gorakhpur to get the central aid to improve facilities at the BRD medical college hospital there.
The Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha said this while responding to Adityanath's charges, at a press conference yesterday, that "When Azad was Union Health Minister, he had said he cannot do anything (about Japanese encephalitis in Gorakhpur) since health is a state subject."
Azad, who had visited the hospital two days ago following reports about deaths of 60 children allegedly for want of oxygen, said he had never seen Adityanath during his tenure in the Health Ministry in the previous UPA government.
"He had never approached me, he had never talked to me (on the issue). Have you ever been to the Health Ministry? So in spite of being and MP and Chief Minister now for six months, he has not taken interest in the hospital," he said.
Azad said that as the Union health minister, he had visited the BRD Medical College twice and in five years sent teams 17 times from the Health Ministry, headed by the Director General of Health Services, health secretary and joint directors.
He also said he had allocated money from the central government fund to construct a children's ward at the hospital despite the fact that it is a state government hospital.
Referring to initiatives taken by the Health Ministry under him to improve facilities at the hospital, Azad said the then MP Adityanath had never written to him seeking aid to improve facilities at the hospital.
"And I am very sorry to say that he is saying he met a number of times the health minister and that the health minister is still alive who can say that you have never met me.. You have never told me... You have never mentioned me."
"Whatever I did (for the development of the hospital), I did on my own initiative," Azad said.
Stepping up his attack against Adityanath for failing to prevent the deaths, Azad said the Uttar Pradesh government has to go as the Chief Minister was "squarely responsible" for the deaths of children at the Medical College Hospital.
He alleged that children had died for want of oxygen,whose
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Azad said this was total negligence on the state government's part and that the government and the Chief Minister cannot just eyewash things by suspending a principal or taking some actions here and there.
"I think some heads should roll and the government has to go," the Congress leader said on the sidelines of the Indira Gandhi birth centenary celebrations organised by the Ernakulam District Congress Committee.
Azad alleged that the Uttar Pradesh government "woke up" only after a Congress delegation headed by him visited the hospital following reports about the death of children.
He said he holds the state government, the health department, the Chief Minister whose parliamentary and assembly constituency falls in Gorakhpur squarely responsible for the deaths of more than 60 'very innocent' children.
"They were the children of the nation. They were our children irrespective of faith and religion. They had no clue what is going in the hospital," Azad added.
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