Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Friday alleged that officials engaged in the COVID-19 control room in Lucknow were neither meeting people in distress nor attending their calls, and asked the Chief Minister why action is not being taken against such personnel.
“Every day the Chief Minister is making statements about acting sternly against lax officers but in the State capital Lucknow, officers are neither meeting people nor picking their calls. There is no one to hear harried people’s grievances. Why action is not being taken against them,” Mr. Yadav said in a statement in Lucknow.
He alleged that the government machinery was non-functional in Uttar Pradesh and people are dying due to COVID-19.
“In this situation, some people are engaging in black marketing of medicines, oxygen cylinder, ventilator and hospital beds and the administration has become a mute spectator. The [ruling] BJP is responsible for the collapse of the health system,” he added.
The former Chief Minister alleged that the BJP “is converting this ‘apda’ [disaster] into an ‘avasar’ [opportunity]. Everything is available in the black market.” A record single-day spike of 34,379 COVID-19 cases and 195 fatalities pushed Uttar Pradesh’s infection tally to 9,76,765 and the death toll due to the disease to 10,541, the State government said on Thursday.