Tumkur, August 27: Former minister Sogadu Shivanna made a scathing attack on his own party saying that the BJP has given tickets to those who have gone to jails, mafia and private money lenders for the city corporation elections.

Speaking to reporters here on Monday, Shivanna said that BJP workers have been alleging that the party district president and former MP have sold the tickets for the city corporation elections. With just three days left to election to be held on August 31, party workers were disappointed about this attitude. Father and son have neglected the party workers which attracted widespread resentment, he said.

BJP is sinking

The party workers have been experiencing the humiliation and pain in this election because of party district president and former MP. As a result, the BJP’s base in the district was sinking.

In the last assembly elections, the party has reached a situation where it has lost deposits in Pavagada, Madhugiri, Koratagere, Shira, Gubbi and other constituencies in the assembly elections. Turuvekere, Tiptur and Chikkanayakanahalli where BJP won were like separate districts.

Tumkur has become an island. There was no coordination. The party state president should look into it and entrust a suitable person to lead the party in the district, he said.

Vote for good people

He appealed the people to vote for the good and honest people irrespective of any political parties and keep the mafia dons, private money lenders and those who have been to jails at bay.

Minister S.R Mahesh should have had the common sense on how to behave with Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman who visited flood hit Kodagu district recently. He should learn it first, he justified the union minister.

BJP leaders MB Nandish, KP Mahesh, Jayasimha Rao, Shantaraju, Banashankari Babu, MS Chandrashekar, Umesh, G Ganesh, K Harish, Madan Singh and others were present.

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Kolkata (PTI): The West Bengal health department has launched a probe into the supplies of allegedly low-quality and locally made catheters at a high price to several government hospitals, posing a risk to the lives of patients undergoing treatment in these facilities, officials said.

Such central venous catheters (CVCs) were allegedly supplied to at least five medical colleges and hospitals in the state, defying allocation of international standard-compliant CVCs, they said.

The distribution company, which has been accused of supplying these catheters to government hospitals, admitted to the fault but placed the blame on its employees.

"We started checking stocks some time back and found these locally made CVCs in my hospital store. These catheters are of low quality as compared to those allocated by the state. We have informed the state health department," a senior official of the Calcutta Medical College and Hospital told PTI.

Low-quality catheters were also found in the stores of other hospitals, which indicates "possible involvement of insiders in the scam", a health department official said.

The low-quality CVCs were supplied by a distributor in the Hatibagan area in the northern part of Kolkata for the last three to four months, he said.

"Such kinds of local CVCs are priced around Rs 1,500 but the distributor took Rs 4,177 for each device," the official said.

A CVC is a thin and flexible tube that is inserted into a vein to allow for the administration of fluids, blood, and other treatment. It's also clinically called a central line catheter.

"An initial probe revealed that the distribution company Prakash Surgical had supplied the low-quality and locally manufactured catheters to several government hospitals instead of the CVCs of the government-designated international company.

"All the units will be tested and a proper investigation is on to find out who benefited from these supplies," the health department official said.

The distribution company blamed its employees for the supply of inferior quality catheters.

"I was sick for a few months. Some employees of the organisation made this mistake. We are taking back all those units that have gone to the hospitals. It's all about misunderstanding," an official of the distribution company told PTI.

According to another state health department official, a complaint was lodged with the police in this connection.

Asked about how many patients were affected by the usage of such low-quality CVCs, the official said, "The probe would also try to find that out".

According to sources in the health department, some of the staff of the hospitals' equipment receiving departments and some local officials of international organisations might be involved in the alleged irregularities.