Congress rallies to protest Bengal's handling of dengue outbreak

Criticising the West Bengal government's role in tackling the outbreak of dengue, the state Congress leadership on Friday held a protest rally here and demanded it take adequate measures to prevent the disease.

The Congress activists, who marched from WBPCC head office Bidhan Bhavan to Esplanade crossing in central Kolkata, carried banners and placards demanding an answer from the government and also sprinkled bleaching powder on both sides of the road as a symbolic protest against the lack of cleanliness drive in the city.

State Congress president Adhir Chowdhury, who led the rally, accused the Bengal government of not taking any help from the central bodies to tackle the "dengue situation" and claimed "the government does not want to reveal that dengue has taken the form of epidemic in Bengal."

He also accused the state government of trying to hide the number of dengue victims by pressurising the medical practitioners.

"The people in Bengal are dying of dengue but the state government is instructing the doctors not to mention dengue in the medical prescriptions. They are asking the doctors to mention the sickness as unknown fever instead, so that the spread of dengue in the state does not come to the forefront," Chowdhury alleged.

"The attempts to hide the facts about dengue is a criminal offence by the government. They are killing the people of Bengal in cold blood," he said.

Refuting Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's claims that the opposition parties are indulging in dirty politics over the issue, Chowdhury said Banerjee herself is busy doing political matchmaking with the Shiv Sena in Mumbai while people in her state are dying.

"We are not doing politics over the issue, the Chief Minister is busy doing politics. She is holding meeting with Hindu hardliners like Shiv Sena in Mumbai so that the Hindus in Bengal do not say her government is busy doing minority appeasement. She is trying to convince the Hindus here that she is with them," he added.

--IANS

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