Yediyurappa challenges CM Siddaramaiah to dissolve Assembly and hold elections now
Bengaluru, Jul 4: BJP stalwart B S Yediyurappa on Thursday challenged Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to dissolve the Karnataka Assembly and go for elections now and claimed that the saffron party will win 140 to 150 seats.
He said the people of the state have rejected the 'useless guarantees', money and muscle power of the Congress government and opted for the BJP in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections.
"I challenge Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, if he has guts, then dissolve the Assembly and go for elections again. Then only you will know what your position is. If the elections are held, BJP will win 140 to 150 seats," the Lingayat strongman said during the BJP state special executive meeting organised at the Palace Grounds here.
Karnataka has 224 Assembly and 28 Lok Sabha seats.
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The former chief minister said in the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP-JD(S) alliance won 19 seats and the BJP got a majority in 142 assembly segments.
Just a year ago, the Congress had come to power by winning 134 seats, but now the ruling party has trailed in places which are represented by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar and several ministers, he said.
"This shows how Congress has lost its popularity in the state within a year by indulging in corruption and ignoring public interest. It has no moral right to continue in power. People overlooked the money and muscle power of the Congress and showed their confidence in Prime Minister Narendra Modi," the BJP stalwart said.
He said the state is heading for bankruptcy. "Due to the useless guarantees, Congress has increased the prices of all the commodities and laid the foundation for inflation. No development works are taking place and irrigation projects have come to a halt."
The Congress government increased petrol and diesel prices, stamp duty and power tariffs, he said.
He claimed that the Congress leaders are demanding to scrap the guarantees and focus on development works.
The former chief minister alleged that the bomb blast at a café, Pakistan Zindabad slogan on the corridors of Vidhana Soudha and gang war in Udupi show that the law and order has worsened in the state.
Yediyurappa said that his party would expose all the scams during the Assembly session and will launch a fight asking the Congress to step down as "it has lost the right to remain in power".
BJP state president B Y Vijayendra said the illegal transfer of Rs 89 crore in the Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribe Development Corporation in the state and the alternative site scam in the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) involving the chief minister’s family underline the deep-rooted corruption in the state.
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'Low-quality' catheters supplied to West Bengal govt hospitals at high price, probe ordered
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.
