A day after the starvation deaths of three minor girls in east Delhi, both the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress on Wednesday flayed the Aam Aadmi Party government on the issue.
"Such a sad incident is happening in Delhi where the government claims to be championing the cause of providing ration to the poor," Delhi BJP President Manoj Tiwari said.
Expressing shock and dismay over the deaths of three siblings in Mandawali, he said that such an incident in a constituency represented by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who on Wednesday ordered a magisterial probe, had "saddened" him.
"We hope that the Arvind Kejriwal government will learn a lesson and concentrate on providing the people the basic necessities," the BJP leader said.
An autopsy at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital suggested that starvation "appears" to be the cause of the demise of the three sisters on Tuesday in Mandawali area of east Delhi.
According to police, the three -- aged two, four and eight years -- were found unconscious in their one-room house by their neighbours and later declared brought dead at the LBS Hospital.
The northeast Delhi MP said that a thorough inquiry was necessary and that society too should take notice and come forward to help the destitute.
The Congress claimed that the bodies had been shifted to the Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital to get the "desired autopsy report".
In a series of tweets in Hindi, Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken said: "Three kids die due to starvation in Delhi's Mandawali. Post-mortem being shifted to GTB Hospital from LBS Hospital in a bid to get the desired reports. This family doesn't have the ration card. The number of ration cards has gone down to 15 lakh from 33.5 lakh during earlier Congress rule in Delhi."
The former Minister said that he will visit the bereaved family on Thursday morning.
"We had alerted the Delhi government earlier that about nine lakh eligible families were denied the ration cards. Three kids have died due to starvation in the constituency of Sisodia, who is buying a new vehicle worth Rs 20 lakh."
--IANS
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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)