Kamal Nath Raises Questions On Safety After Massive Bhopal Building Fire

Former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath on Tuesday took a dig at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led state government and raised questions over the fire incident that broke out at Satpura Bhawan in the state capital on Monday evening.

"This is another example of corruption. Whether the fire broke out or it was set, it is the biggest question? So far it has been said that 12000 files have been burnt in the incident, but don't know how many files would have been burnt in it. This is a matter of huge corruption and it should be thoroughly investigated. The inquiry should be conducted by an independent agency in the matter," Nath said.

Raising questions on the preparation of the state government to deal with the fire incident, the congress leader said, "They (BJP-led state government) have no preparation for anything. Their preparation is only in making money."

On the other hand, Madhya Pradesh Medical Education Minister Vishwas Sarang said, "Congress does politics on every issue. The offices where the fire broke out, there was no such office in which any kind of government procurement, tender process, money related work or any budget related work was done."

He added that there was an office of Tribal Area Development Programmes (TADP) which took care of funds received from the central grant used for the development of tribal areas. The complete record of it is with the Central Government and is also with the state government in this digital era.

Secondly, there was an office health department in which there were only files of the establishment, in which there is no point of corruption and that too will be recreated in today's digital age, the minister further said.

Congress only does politics on every issue, there is neither the matter of files of corruption, nor any transaction, Congress is making allegations to polish their politics. It is completely baseless, minister Sarang added.

Earlier, after the fire incident, Congress MLA Jitu Patwari wrote over Twitter, "This is our health directorate. It is operated from the Satpura Bhawan in the state capital Bhopal. Today it caught fire again."

He further wrote, "CM Chouhan, my direct question is, whether the fire breaks out or has it been set? Because it is generally believed that the government does such 'action' to destroy the evidence before the elections. Now, the BJP should also tell who were the culprits in the old fire incident. How many people were punished?"

On the other hand, former Pradesh Congress Committee President (PCC) Chief Arun Yadav also tweeted on Monday, "Today, when Priyanka Gandhi attacked regarding the scams while addressing in Jabalpur, a huge fire broke out in the Satpura Bhawan in which important files were burnt to ashes."

"Whether it is a conspiracy to burn the documents of scams on the pretext of fire? This fire incident is indicating a change in Madhya Pradesh," he further wrote on Twitter.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)