After Friday’s Odisha train mishap came the Sunday’’s political slugfest among Bengal politicians with State Opposition Leader Suvendu Adhikari hitting out at Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for “forcibly carrying away” the injured passengers of the ill-fated Coromandel Express — that on Friday evening met with a catastrophic accident at Bahanaga off Balasore in Odisha — to Bengal which lacked basic health infrastructure.
“I strongly object to the way the Bengal Government is playing politics here by forcibly taking away the injured persons to Kolkata and other places of Bengal where there is jungle raj in the name of health facility … Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is playing with the lives of these hapless people for the sake of narrow politics,” Adhikari who on Sunday visited the hospitals where the injured were being treated in Odisha said.
His fierce attack on the Trinamool Congress chief and her Government came hours after Banerjee demanded Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav’s resignation for failing to save so many lives. Close to 300 people perished and more than 1000 were seriously injured in the accident involving three trains out of which Chennai-bound Coromandel Express was the worst hit.
“When the Railways Ministry inspired by the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in close coordination with Government of Odisha has been doing marvelous work in rescuing and treating the operations There is no health facility in Bengal … or else why lakhs of people visit Cuttack, Bhubaneshwar and Vellore and other southern cities for treatment every year,” Adhikari wondered.
Every year 10 lakh people go to Odisha and Vellore in South India for treatment and another 10 lakh migrate to southern States in search of jobs, both of which were poor advertisements of Bengal under Mamata Banerjee.
The BJP leader further said that he would not have raised such issues “but the way Mamata Banerjee attacked a gentleman like Mr Vaishnav who has done a great job in restoring the Railways to its glory I had to come out to speak the truth.”
With Balasore being a border district scores of injured people were being ferried away for treatment to Kolkata by the ambulances sent in by the Bengal government. Many of these people were presently being treated in SSKM Hospital, NRS and RG Kar Medical Colleges in the Bengal Capital.