News Analysis India

Tag: Vishvas Sarang

  • Economic woes began with Nehru’s Independence day speech: Madhya Pradesh minister on inflation

    By PTI
    BHOPAL: A BJP minister in Madhya Pradesh on Saturday said the problem of inflation does not arise “in a day or two”, and the economy began to go downhill with the “mistakes” of Jawaharlal Nehru’s speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort on August 15, 1947.

    Minister for Medical Education Vishvas Sarang was reacting to a planned protest by the Congress over rising prices and other issues. Talking to reporters in Bhopal, Sarang said, “If the credit for increasing inflation by crippling the economy after the country’s independence goes to anyone, it is the Nehru family.”

    “Inflation does not rise in a day or two. The foundation of the economy is not laid in a day or two. The country’s economy has deteriorated due to the mistakes of the speech that (the first prime minister) Jawaharlal Nehru delivered from the ramparts of the Red Fort on August 15, 1947,” the BJP leader said.

    He said that the Narendra Modi government, on the other hand, has strengthened the economy in the past seven years.

    The BJP government has launched schemes for the welfare of the poor and their participation in the economy, Sarang said, adding that during the Congress regime the economy was the preserve of a few industrialists.

    The inflation is down and people’s incomes have increased during the BJP rule, the minister claimed. He quipped that Congress workers should rather protest in front of “10 Janpath” (party president Sonia Gandhi’s residence).

    Congress leaders in the state ridiculed Sarang’s comments.

    MP Congress spokesperson KK Mishra said, “Vishwas Sarang, an eligible minister of Shivraj’s (Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan) circus, is blaming the country’s inflation on Nehru’s speech in 1947, when he was not even born. As a departmental (health) minister, can you state if Nehru was also responsible for the thousands of deaths due to lack of beds, oxygen and Remdesivir during the coronavirus pandemic?”

    Narendra Saluja, another Congress spokesperson, said the BJP ministry in MP was full of weird people. “A minister starts climbing up an electricity poll to repair it, another talks about how many children a couple should have, yet another says that money should be charged for a selfie. Now, a minister is holding a speech delivered 75 years ago responsible for inflation. Why did the BJP then promise relief from inflation in its poll campaign?” he asked.

  • Madhya Pradesh: Striking doctors of six government medical colleges return to work after eight days

    By Express News Service
    BHOPAL: Around 3000 junior doctors – considered to be the backbone of hospitals – of six government medical colleges in Madhya Pradesh ended their eight-day-old strike on Monday. The strike was ended by the doctors after another round of talks with the state’s medical education minister Vishvas Sarang, where the state government accepted all their major demands.

    The accepted demands, included 17 per cent raise in stipend, rendering distinctive numbers to the medicos for their services in handling the COVID pandemic (so that they get weightage for it in future employment in government sector), free treatment to them and kin at hospitals in case of being infected with COVID and establishing police outposts in all medical colleges.

    “The minister has also assured us about constituting a committee which will decide on our demand to raise the stipend by 24 per cent and also assured to link the stipend with the Consumer Price Index (CPI),” the junior doctors state body president Dr Arvind Meena told The New Indian Express.

    The strike started on May 31 by junior doctors of government medical colleges in Indore, Bhopal, Jabalpur, Gwalior, Sagar and Rewa was subsequently ended at 2 pm on Monday.

    The government also assured the striking junior doctors of reversing the action initiated against them, including cancellation of registration of 468 PG Final Year students by the MP Medical Science University, Jabalpur.

    Importantly, on Thursday,  the MP High Court in Jabalpur had declared the junior doctors strike illegal and directed them to resume duties within 24 hours, failing which the state government was directed by the HC to act against the junior doctors.

    Subsequently, the MP Medical Science University in Jabalpur had cancelled the registration of 468 PG students in the government medical colleges of the state, which will make them ineligible of taking their final exams.

    Also, the Dean of Gandhi Medical College, Bhopal got 28 striking junior doctors to vacate their hostels. 

  • Madhya Pradesh gets 100 oxygen concentrators from WHO for treatment of COVID patients

    By PTI
    BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh on Wednesday received 100 oxygen concentrators sent by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for the treatment of COVID-19 patients, a state minister said. Talking to reporters, Medical Education minister Vishvas Sarang said these oxygen concentrators will be distributed in various districts of the state.

    “Different states in the country have received 4,000 oxygen concentrators from the WHO. They will be beneficial in providing treatment to patients. The government has been continuously making efforts to check the spread of coronavirus in the state,” he said.

    The minister was present at the government drug store here, where these 100 concentrators were delivered. “Thanks to the sustained efforts, the positivity rate in Madhya Pradesh has come down and the recovery rate has improved,” he said.

    Talking about Mucormycosis or black fungus, a rare but serious infection being found in COVID-19 patients, he said the government has made a provision to provide free treatment against this disease in five state-run medical colleges, and also constituted a task force.

    WHO’s state team leader Dr Abhishek Jain and Dr Jatin Thakkar and Bhopal’s chief medical and health officer (CMHO) Dr Prabhakar Tiwari, among others, were present on the occasion.

  • MP minister’s tweet on air shipping of Nehru’s cigarettes decades ago triggers row

    Express News Service
    BHOPAL: The Madhya Pradesh Raj Bhavan anecdote about the country’s first PM Jawaharlal Nehru’s visit to Bhopal, which was shared by a state cabinet minister, has triggered a political controversy.

    Vishvas Sarang, the Minister for Medical Education and Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief tweeted on Tuesday, sharing a decades-old Raj Bhavan anecdote by Hari Vinayak Pataskar, who was the state’s Governor from June 1957 to February 1965.

    The anecdote read, “On a visit of Jawaharlal Nehru to Bhopal, the Raj Bhavan staff realised that the favourite cigarette brand of Nehruji “555” was not available in the Raj Bhavan. Nehruji used to smoke after his meals. The staff immediately sent a plane to Indore for air-lifting Nehruji’s favourite pack, which was kept ready at the Indore Airport.“

    The MP minister wrote, “#Quit Gandhi Surname, Gajab hain Nehruji, Vilayat se kapde dhulvaye, Gandhiji ka surname churaye, lekin charitra nahi apnaye. Aur toh aur hawai jahaj se cigarette mangvaye. (Nehru was amazing, got his clothes washed from abroad, stole Gandhi’s surname, but didn’t adopt Gandhi’s character.  He (Nehru) even got cigarette air-lifted,” Sarang tweeted on Tuesday.

    Reacting sharply to the tweet, MP Congress general secretary (media) and a sworn Gandhian KK Mishra said on Wednesday, “Vishvas Sarang wasn’t even born when Jawaharlal Nehru was alive. It wasn’t Nehruji’s crime that he was born in a financially strong family and studied abroad. Nehruji spent 18 years of his life in jail for fighting for the country’s independence. Air-lifting Nehruji’s favourite cigarette pack from Indore as it wasn’t available at Raj Bhavan in Bhopal wasn’t Nehruji’s fault, but the fault of then flatterer bureaucrats. Before tweeting on Nehru, Sarang should ask himself and then tell us whether his own leader, the present PM Narendra Modi is actually pursuing the character and ethics of Bhartiya Jan Sangh founders and ideologues Deen Dayal Upadhyaya and Syama Prasad Mukherjee.”

    Young Congress MLA Kunal Chaudhary also replied to the tweet, “today’s politicians won’t understand the exalted persona of Jawaharlal Nehru, who spent his entire youth in the jails just for the country’s freedom.”