Chandigarh, May 15
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Punjab president and Member of Parliament Bhagwant Mann criticized the remarks made by Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh of holding the villagers responsible and asked him to tell them as to what he had done for the health services in the villages. He alleged that the people of the villages of Punjab had been left homeless by Captain Amarinder Singh to deal with the Covid pandemic. In a statement issued from the party headquarters here on Saturday, Bhagwant Mann said that Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh in his address had ordered the villagers of Punjab to patrol the village and not allow the Covid victims to enter the village, which proves that he has no concern for the villagers. Mann said that it was the responsibility of the Captain government to make arrangements and treat the victims to prevent the spread of Covid pandemic in the villages but the government had failed miserably in fulfilling its responsibilities.
Mann said that in many villages of Punjab there was no such thing as a medical facility. “Where there is a dispensary, there is no doctor and if there is a doctor there is no medicine, only Paracetamol. Thus, 60 to 70 per cent of dispensaries in Punjab do not have doctors, so where will the people get treatment,” he added. Mann said that the people of Punjab had lost faith in government hospitals as they felt that if they went to government hospitals for treatment of Covid, they would come back as corpses. In such a dire situation, the people had to go to private hospitals for treatment of Covid. He said that some private hospitals were charging people Rs 70,000 a day in the name of Covid treatment, which was an economic robbery of the common man. Mann also asked Captain Amarinder Singh to learn a lesson from the states like Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Delhi where the governments had fixed the fees for the treatment of Covid victims.
The AAP leader said that in the last 70 years, the Akalis and Congress had ruled Punjab alternately and looted and harassed the people. “Those who enjoy the Chief Minister’s and ministers’ seats in these times have not built a good healthcare system in Punjab, but have given government property to their benefactors at rock bottom prices to build a private hospital,” said Mann. He said that the Congress government was not paying any attention to the safety and treatment of the people but the ministers and leaders of Captain Amarinder Singh were fighting among themselves to save the seats. He appealed to Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh to get rid of the feud between the Congress and Captain must take stock of the people of Punjab.
