This Article is From Mar 06, 2014

'Has someone died in your family?' Mulayam snaps at journalists over doctors' strike

'Has someone died in your family?' Mulayam snaps at journalists over doctors' strike
Lucknow: Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav today snapped at journalists who questioned him on the doctors' strike in Uttar Pradesh, asking them: "Has someone died in your family?"

Mr Yadav was hitting out at the media for, what he believed, overplaying the strike that has crippled medical services in the state governed by his son Akhilesh Yadav.

The doctors called off the strike today after the Allahabad High Court assured them that their demands would be looked into. The state government had earlier said they would be prosecuted if they didn't return to work.

When a reporter asked Mulayam Singh to comment on the strike affecting patients, he retorted, "Who died? Someone in your family?"

The reporter replied that he was talking about patients. The 74-year-old politician shot back, "You people are saying it. If you report properly then strikes will end. Why hype the doctors' strike so much?"

The state government has denied reports of 30 people dying since the strike began in protest against the alleged assault on doctors by the police at the instance of a Samajwadi Party legislator on Friday.

Mulayam Singh, not known for his restraint, had sparked outrage in December when he alleged that people who had stayed back in relief camps in riot-hit Muzaffarnagar district and had refused to return to their villages were political stooges, not riot victims.
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