Rajesh Tope mentioned most of the sufferers who died had points like co-morbidities and different sicknesses (File).
Mumbai:
Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope on Wednesday mentioned the state authorities by no means reported any demise resulting from scarcity of oxygen throughout the second wave of COVID-19.
Notably, in April this 12 months, 22 sufferers died after the oxygen provide was disrupted at a Nashik hospital resulting from leakage in an oxygen storage plant, native officers had mentioned. Mr Tope had then mentioned a radical probe will likely be performed to search out out if negligence led to the leakage of oxygen on the hospital.
On Tuesday, the Union authorities informed the Rajya Sabha that no deaths resulting from lack of oxygen had been particularly reported by states and UTs throughout the second COVID-19 wave, drawing sharp criticism from opposition leaders.
When requested by a TV channel in regards to the Centre’s assertion, Mr Tope mentioned, “We never said people died due to oxygen shortage in the state. Many of them had issues like co-morbidities and other illnesses. No death has taken place due to the shortage of oxygen.”
Earlier within the day, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut, whose occasion shares energy with the NCP and Congress in Maharashtra, mentioned folks whose kin died resulting from oxygen scarcity ought to “take the Union government to court”.
Noting that opposition-ruled states claimed in courts that there was no demise resulting from scarcity of oxygen throughout the second COVID-19 wave and made comparable assertions of their response to the Centre, the BJP on Wednesday hit again at its rivals amid a row over the Modi authorities’s reply in Parliament on the matter.
BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra famous that the central authorities’s reply was based mostly on the figures offered by states and UTs as well being is a state topic.
No state despatched any knowledge about sufferers dying resulting from oxygen scarcity, he asserted.
He mentioned the Maharashtra authorities additionally informed the Bombay High Court that nobody died as a result of oxygen scarcity and Chhattisgarh Health Minister T S Singh Deo has additionally made comparable claims.
Shortly after the assertion within the Rajya Sabha was remodeled the difficulty in a written reply by Minister of State for Health Bharati Pravin Pawar on Tuesday, AICC common secretary Okay C Venugopal accused the minister of getting “misled” the House.
Describing the assertion as “condemnable”, Mr Venugopal, a Rajya Sabha MP to whose query the reply was given, had mentioned he’ll transfer a privilege movement towards the minister.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is printed from a syndicated feed.)
