Rae Bareilly:
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati's government is facing the heat after a fifth death allegedly related to the Rs 5000-crore rural health fund scam in the state was reported yesterday. Political attacks against the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief have grown fiercer with her opponents blaming her for allegedly turning a blind eye to corruption. The CBI has also intensified its crackdown and probe into the scam that saw corrupt bureaucrats and politicians siphoning away crores meant to improve health facilities.
The fresh political storm in the state has been triggered by the death of Mahendra Sharma, a clerk with the state Health Department. Mr Sharma, who worked with a community health centre, was found dead in Lakhimpur yesterday. His family has alleged that he was being forced by senior health officials to fabricate documents that showed funds being spent on medicines and other supplies. They suspect he was murdered.
"He has injuries all over his body. We informed them that my father has not reached home... when we went to there we saw his body... no one came to help him... We found some documents. He was under pressure," said Mr Sharma's son Neeraj.
"He was an innocent person. He was living in panic. They killed him," said his wife. The police are now waiting for Mr Sharma's post-mortem report to confirm the reason for his death.
Mahendra Sharma's death, right in the middle of the Uttar Pradesh elections, couldn't have come at a worse time for chief minister Mayawati. Leading the attack against her yesterday was Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi. "I think it's a very sad situation that the central government sends funds for the people and obviously that the fact that these things are happening means that they are being used wrongly and there is a lot of corruption," she said.
The BJP, which is facing flak for embracing Mayawati's sacked family welfare minister Babu Singh Kushwaha, also seized the opportunity to attack the UP Chief Minister. "A lot of skeletons are still going to come out. The larger issue is about the liability of Mayawati herself as the Chief Minister and also the earlier regime of Mulayam Singh Yadav. The entire scam lasts to about last seven-eight years spanning into at least Rs. 5000 crore, that's important," BJP spokesperson Ravishankar Prasad said.
The scam was birthed in the Family Welfare department in Mayawati's government, which handled the huge funds sent by the Centre for the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) Scheme.
In 2010-11, two senior doctors associated with the Family Welfare ministry were murdered within months of each other. Then, the man who stepped in for them was also found dead in a Lucknow jail. In January, an officer with the UP Jal Nigam, committed suicide allegedly because he was being investigated for a role in the scam.