Chennai: The Opposition DMK objected to a Central team member for describing 40 deaths in Tamil Nadu due to dengue as “minimal,” and said the remark belittled the lives of the Tamil people and is insulting.
Taking strong exception to the observation by Ashutosh Biswas, a professor of medicine at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and member of the Central team deputed to examine the dengue situation in Tamil Nadu, DMK working president M. K. Stalin asked, “how has he expressed such an opinion? Who gave him courage to say so?”
On Friday Biswas had said that 40 dengue deaths since January were “minimal” and that “it is nothing...no need to create panic.” “The remark belittled the lives of the Tamil people and it is insulting,” the leader of opposition in the Assembly said.
He demanded the ouster of Biswas from the Central team, and suggested
that the central team avoid making such remarks. The central team should give recommendations to the Union government in a way the state government gets the funding sought to check the spread of dengue, he said.
Mr Stalin sought to know if Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami too “accepted that view.” He also termed it “lie” the state government’s claim that 18 people had died due to Dengue while seeking Rs 256 crore from the Centre to tackle the dengue situation. “I urge Union Minister J. P. Nadda to advise the Central panel to undertake inspection in such a way as to help eradicate dengue,” he said.
