KOLKATA: West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Dilip Ghosh has written to Union Health Minister JP Nadda claiming that Mamata Banerjee-led government is attempting to sweep the dengue crisis under the carpet.
Opposition parties have been alleging that the Mamata Banerjee government is trying to suppress the number of deaths because of dengue in the state.
Ghosh's letter comes a day after West Bengal health department suspended a doctor allegedly after he accused the state government of suppressing facts relating to the dengue menace in the state in a Facebook post.
Arunachal Dutta Choudhury's posts on the social media amount to "misinterpretation in the public and (are) derogatory to the hospital administration," the suspension order issued by the state health department said.
The doctor, an MD, was posted at Barasat District Hospital in North 24 Parganas district.
He claimed in the posts that 500 people were admitted to the hospital on October 6 and wrote about his struggle to diagnose the patients many of whom were lying on the floor.
Former Mamata aide and now a BJP member Mukul Roy also targetted the TMC government over the issue. "At a time the state is reeling under dengue and the disease has claimed more than 80 lives, the CM is busy celebrating film festivals. Late CM Jyoti Basu took summer vacations to London. Our CM now is doing the same," he said.
According to the health department, there have been 19 deaths in state-run hospitals since January and over 18,000 cases were reported in various government clinical establishments.
