Tirupati: Narayana lambasts Centre's 'lies' on oxygen deaths
CPI national general secretary K Narayana along with other party leaders, addressing the media in Tirupati on Wednesday
Tirupati: CPI national secretary K Narayana flayed Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya for stating in the Parliament that there were no deaths due to oxygen shortage in hospitals during the Covid second wave.
Speaking to media here on Wednesday, the communist leader said in Tirupati itself 23 died in SVRR government hospital due to interruption in oxygen supply and the government also paid compensation to the victims. He also criticised the AP government for remaining mum on oxygen deaths in hospitals in the state to please the Centre deliberately underplaying the deaths due to Covid.
He also wanted action against the Union health minister and register a case under Section 420 of IPC (cheating) for hiding oxygen deaths.
Alleging large-scale corruption in the lands acquired for national highways in Chittoor district, he said the district party decided to organise a padayatra from Chittoor to Thatchur on the state border to press for a fair play in paying compensation to farmers whose lands were acquired for the national highways in the district, on August 5.
The farmers in eight mandals who were affected in the land acquisition have been protesting for the last three months demanding fair compensation but the government remained unmoved, he said and alleged that those who bribed the authorities got a higher rate of compensation. He said the roads (highways) intend to benefit only the corporate and big industrialists and not the common man.
Welcoming the Telangana government's Dalitha Bandhu scheme, he wanted it to implement state-wide, instead of as a pilot project in Huzurabad only. He also wanted the AP government to take up the scheme in AP.
On the Vizag steel plant privatisation, he said that the opposition parties planned to take up a joint protest in New Delhi on August 2 and 3 and slammed the YSRCP for its failure to press the BJP government to save the Vizag steel plant.. He said that the oustees of Polavaram projects are sandwitched in the political game going on in the state causing delay in rehabilitation and relief to the tune of Rs 31,000 crore to them and added that CPI is organising a protest on the issue in New Delhi on August 5.
CPI district secretary A Rama Naidu and others were present.