Continuing with her “smart, updated politics” that has sustained her the most during times of trouble winning hearts and weaning away supporters from the once formidable left camp, Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday dropped in at the Midnapore Medical College and Hospital to enquire after the health of the BJP supporters who had met with an accident during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rally on Monday.
Not only did she visit the injured but the Chief Minister also announced Rs one lakh each for three persons injured seriously in the accident.
The Chief Minister who was in Kharagpur to attend a convocation programme of the Indian Institute of Technology, went to the MMCH a few miles away and announced her decision to “remain by the side of the victims though they had come to attend the meeting of a different party.”
She said, “Many people were injured when the scaffolding collapsed at the meeting venue on Monday. Most of them belong to the lower income group.
They told me that they were not getting promised support from the quarters concerned. So I decided to help them with Rs 1 lakh each for three such injured victims. The victims will be paid from the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund tomorrow. Others who were also injured and need help may come to us and we will do the needful after proper inquiry.”
One of the victims Sumitra Mahato who was still lying on the hospital bed with a broken leg said, “She was so affectionate in asking me about my family and my economic status. When I told that we are daily wagers and would find it difficult to carry on like this she said she would do the needful.”
More than a hundred people were injured when a giant tent collapsed at the rally site in Midnapore town when the Prime Minister was delivering her speech in Monday’s farmers’ rally.