"Until Court...": Uddhav Thackeray Slams Eknath Shinde Over Nanded Deaths

Demanding an impartial CBI probe into the spate of deaths in government hospitals across Maharashtra, former Chief Minister and UBT chief Uddhav Thackeray on Friday asked the government who is responsible for the Nanded deaths and where the Chief Minister is in this difficult time.

"This government has no moral right as they have money to spend on advertisements but no funds to save people's lives. Who is responsible? Where is CM at this difficult time? It was the responsibility of CM and Deputy CM to go and find out the reason for this," he added," Uddhav Thackeray said while addressing a press conference in Mumbai.

Following the hearing on the recent deaths of patients at a government hospital in Nanded, Mr Thackeray said that until and unless the court teaches them lessons, they won't realise.

"Until and unless the court teaches them lessons they won't realise, in the past also court has made an observation and slammed the government, what about the task force we have formed to take than the Covid-19 pandemic, why aren't this government taking help of this tasks force, Uddhav suggested the government," he said.

The Bombay High Court has asked the Maharashtra government to file an affidavit on the steps taken to fill vacancies in government hospitals in the last six months.

The court has also asked the state government to mention the demand and supplies of medicines to the government hospitals in the last six months.

He further slammed Maharashtra's Chief Minister Eknath Shinde over his Delhi visit and said "People here in the state are dying and the Chief minister is in Delhi attending some Naxal-related meetings but I want to say if it continues then many more people will lose their lives than people die during naxal attack."

Comparing his government tenure work with the Shinde government, he said that during COVID-19, the same doctors, deans, nurses, and ward boys were there and served the patients by risking their lives.

"As per my knowledge, Maharashtra was the only state where medicines were delivered through drones in remote regions... Since the last few days, news has been coming from Thane, Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, Nagpur, and Nanded, and news is still coming from some places that there is a shortage of medicine," he added.

At least 31 people died in the government-run Dr Shankarrao Chavan Medical College and Hospital Nanded, reportedly due to an alleged scarcity of medicines.

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