Two more chikungunya deaths were today reported at a city hospital, taking to three the number of fatalities due to the vector-borne disease in Delhi where the number of cases have mounted to over 1,000 this season.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who too is away for throat surgery in Bengaluru, said he was powerless and people ought to question the LG Najeeb Jung and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
He tweeted, “CM n min left wid no power now, even to buy a pen. LG n PM enjoy all powers wrt Del. LG abroad.Question them for Del. (sic).”
CM n min left wid no power now, even to buy a pen. LG n PM enjoy all powers wrt Del. LG abroad.Question them for Del https://t.co/t8ygcZmo1P
— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) September 13, 2016
Delhi’s deputy chief minister, Manish Sisodia, too is visiting abroad, to attend an education programme in Finland.
Health Minister Satyender Jain, according to NDTV, is on a visit to Goa to oversee the Aam Aadmi Party’s preparations for next year’s assembly elections.
Kapil Mishra, who’s in Delhi, blamed the BJP-run civic bodies asking where the mayor had disappeared.
Meanwhile, 65-year-old Ramendra Pandey on Monday died of chikungunya at the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, in what could be the first such death in the national capital.
The other two deaths also took place at the same hospital yesterday and both victims were aged above 60 as well, hospital authorities told PTI.
“Uday Shanker of Dwarka was admitted on September 11 and he died on September 12. His RT-PCR test for chikungunya had come positive. He had come to our OPD and then admitted.
“Ashok Chauhan, 62, from Aligarh also died of chikungunya yesterday. He too was admitted in ICU on September 11 and his RT-PCR test came positive,” a senior official of the hospital said.
Pandey, who was referred from a Ghaziabad hospital, had succumbed to the disease at the hospital at 4 AM after suffering chikungunya with sepsis.
Doctors say that chikungunya is not a life-threatening disease in general, but in rare cases leads to complications that prove fatal, especially in children and old persons.
Incidentally, one suspected chikungunya death has also been reported at the AIIMS, but hospital authorities are yet to confirm it.
“We are yet to confirm if the death was due to chikungunya. But till then it is a suspected case,” AIIMS spokesperson Amit Gupta said.
According to reports, the “chikungunya death” at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences took place sometime in September and five persons have also “died of dengue” this month.
Chikungunya cases in the national capital have sharply risen to over 1,000 this season, marking a jump of nearly 90 per cent from its count last week.
According to a municipal report released yesterday, at least 1,057 cases of this vector-borne disease have been recorded till September 10, however, hospitals in the city altogether are reporting much higher number.
Sisodia said that officials of the Delhi government were busy following the “LG’s instructions” of going through the files of the past 18 months and sending these to him.
“Officers do not come to meetings called by ministers.
They remain away from their offices throughout the day. If the country has reporters who are not in the ‘Modi school of journalism’, they should decide who the government is–LG or Chief Minister
“If they believe LG has all the powers in Delhi then he should be held responsible in these cases. Where did the LG disappear after putting useless and lazy officers at the helm of the Health department in the city,” the Deputy CM said in a series of tweets.
The Delhi High Court, in its August 4 verdict, had held that the Lt Governor was the administrative head of the national capital, thus rejecting the AAP government’s contention that the Governor was bound to act only on the aid and advice of the CM and his council of ministers.
(With PTI inputs)
