Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Assembly was adjourned thrice Thursday as the Opposition disrupted the House proceedings, demanding state Health Minister Mukesh Mahaling’s resignation over the death of 12 patients at a state-run hospital in Cuttack.
The House saw multiple adjournments during the day, initially till 11.30 am and then again till 1 pm. Speaker Surama Padhy had convened an all-party meeting to address the stalemate. But it failed to resolve the impasse. The ruckus continued when the House reconvened, leading to its adjournment till 4 pm.
As the Question Hour began in the morning, members of the Opposition BJD and Congress stormed into the well of the House, waving placards and raising slogans, while some attempted to climb the Speaker’s podium. Opposition MLAs slammed the BJP government with the chant “Ram nam satya hai” and slogan “Mohan Majhi Hai Hai”, targeting the chief minister.
Speaker Surama Padhy could continue the question hour for just about eight minutes amid the din, after which she adjourned the proceedings till 11.30 am.
The uproar continued even when the House reassembled at 11.30 am, forcing the Speaker to adjourn the proceedings till 1 pm. Padhy convened an all-party meeting to resolve the stalemate, but that remained inconclusive.
Outside the House, BJD chief whip Pramila Mallik said, “The minister must resign as over 10 people have died in the devastating fire at the ICU of SCB Medical College, a government-run premier medical facility.”
Targeting the BJP government, she pointed out that a fire incident had occurred during the BJD rule, and the then health minister, Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak, was asked to resign on moral grounds.”Where is the morality of the BJP government? The government cannot absolve itself of responsibility by ordering a judicial inquiry or suspending four junior-level officers,” she said.
Mallik also demanded stringent action against the hospital superintendent and top officials “for their negligence that led to the loss of lives”.
BJP member Irasis Acharya came down heavily on the Opposition for disrupting the proceedings while pointing out that the state government has already taken punitive steps in the matter.
“The government has suspended four officials, launched an investigation by a fact-finding team and also ordered a judicial probe into the matter. There is no point in stalling House,” he said.
The fire at the Trauma Care ICU of the SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack early March 16 that killed 12 people and left 11 injured has sparked outrage across the state.
