01 Aug 2021  |   06:46am IST

Govt lied in House on ‘no deaths due to oxygen shortage’: AAP

Team Herald

PANJIM: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Saturday slammed the BJP government and Health Minister Vishwajit Rane in particular, for brazenly lying by stating in the Goa Legislative Assembly that there were “no deaths due to oxygen shortage”. 

AAP State convenor Rahul Mhambre said the government had refused the demand in the High Court’s PIL for a Judicial Commission to inquire into the oxygen deaths, claiming “it would demoralise the coronavirus warriors”. 

“Why did the Chief Minister think such an investigation would demoralise the doctors and nurses if there were no deaths due to shortage of oxygen supply? This exposes the BJP government which has been caught in its own web of lies. The government was only hiding its own failures while making the shocking insinuation that the coronavirus warriors may be to blame,” Mhambre charged.

Referring to the statement made by Rane in the current Assembly session, Mhambre questioned whether this is the same Vishwajit Rane who on May 11 had demanded a High Court investigation into his own government for oxygen-related deaths in Goa Medical College and Hospital, Bambolim.

“Rane’s and the BJP government’s U-turn is incredulous. Rane had himself raised the issue, and the Chief Minister had also admitted that ‘availability of medical oxygen in Goa Medical College and Hospital, Bambolim might have caused some issues for the patients’. Everyone remembers the late-night BJP Core Committee meeting after which a three-member committee was announced to look into the oxygen supply issue,” Mhambre recalled. 

The AAP’s State Convenor said:”The party continues to demand a court-monitored investigation into the oxygen deaths issue, as the government owes an apology as well as compensation to the families of those who lost loved ones due to the government’s failure to provide adequate oxygen.” Mhambre accused the State government of being pressurised by the Central government, which had issued a similar denial in the Rajya Sabha over the issue of deaths due to oxygen shortage.”