Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said on Friday that more than 1,000 kids had lost their lives in Gorakhpur in the last 12 months but Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was tweeting about infant deaths at the Kota government hospital.
Akhilesh also said that he would be releasing a list of children who lost their lives due to lack of treatment in BRD Medical College Hospital in Gorakhpur.
He also charged that the state government pressured doctors to “manage” the number of deaths caused by Japanese Encephalitis (JE) in Gorakhpur.
At least 103 infants have died in a government-run hospital in Kota district of Rajasthan in the last 35 days.
On Thursday, Yogi had targeted the Congress over the death of infants in Kota and said that the party’s general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra should have gone there to console the mothers of the children who had died instead of “playing politics” over anti-CAA protests in UP.
Speaking to media persons in Lucknow on Friday, the SP chief said, “The Chief Minister is concerned about deaths of children in Kota but when will he show his concern over deaths of more than a thousand kids over the last few years in Gorakhpur?”
“Despite knowing that the kids were suffering from JE, doctors could not give them the right medication as they were told to keep the figures of such cases under control at any cost,” said Akhilesh, even as the Congress government in Rajasthan was up against a major political storm over infant deaths in the Kota hospital.
Yadav sought to know why wrong medicines were administered to the child patients and who should be accountable for the tragedy.
However, Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma denied claims made by the SP chief and said, “I will compliment the chief minister for improving facilities at BRD Medical College in Gorakhpur which has resulted in a sharp decline in JE causalities. Akhileshji should come up with a list to substantiate his claim as his charges are baseless.”
Referring to Bharatiya Janata Party state president Swatantra Dev Singh’s remark that the SP chief should stay in Pakistan for a month to understand atrocities being faced by Hindus there, Akhilesh Yadav said that the saffron party suggested this as it did not want any discussion on unemployment.
The BJP regime at the Centre has been silent on pressing economic issues, rising prices of essentials, higher cost of LPG cylinders and hike in power tariff, he added.
Referring to the recent protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and police action against the protesters, the SP chief claimed that all deaths during the protests were caused by police bullets.
Akhilesh Yadav said that the SP workers would take out rallies across the state against National Population Register (NPR) soon, as it would do no good to the people.
“Nahi chahiye NPR, humey chahiye rozgar (We don’t need NPR, we need employment) will be our slogan,” he said.