The Cuttack City Congress unit on Tuesday demanded dissolution of the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) council forthwith, for what it called “utter failure by the civic body to check the spread of dengue menace in the city.
Staging a massive protest dharna in front of the civic body office here, Congress workers led by their city unit president Md Moqim courted arrest. Before being arrested, the Congress workers had formed a human chain shouting slogans against the Health Minister Damodar Rout.
Baying for Rout’s head, senior Congress leaders addressing the dharna came down heavily on the ministry for its failure to foresee the dengue threat in the city. They were highly critical to the minister’s callous attitude when the dengue threat returned to haunt the residents here about three weeks ago.
Alleging that the health and sanitary situation in the city have been completely crippled, the Congress leaders said the civic body authorities never bothered to attach due priority to the viral disease when the monsoon season set in. “Residential areas are full of garbage, drains are choked leading to water logging,” the Congress leaders alleged.