APCC vice-president G. Gangadhar on Sunday said he would not stop questioning the failures of the government.
Addressing the media after facing questions by a CID officer for almost two hours, Dr. Gangadhar, a practising paediatrician, said he was accused of making statements that triggered a sense of insecurity among the doctors treating COVID-19 patients and that his remarks had hit their self-esteem.
“I am a doctor myself. I had worked as president of the Congress party’s Doctors’ Cell. When the COVID-19 broke out in the State, we had set up a COVID Command Control Centre. I, as its in-charge, had taken up activities such as providing food and other facilities to the migrant workers, and helped them reach their homes,” Dr. Gangadhar said.
My opinions, shared in a TV debate, were based on my filed-level assessment and first-hand account of the grim scenario shared by some of my friends and colleagues in the government services, he said.
“My opinion was very close to the Daily Situation Report (DSR) released by the Health Department,” Dr. Gangadhar said.
The Congress leader said that the day he had participated in the TV debate coincided with reports of 12 persons, who included doctors and medical staff, in Anantapur and Guntur districts contracting the virus.
‘Words of caution’
“I was trying to caution the government that the situation could turn worse and we could lose many of our frontline warriors, and thus the battle against the virus,” he said.
Dr. Gangadhar termed the case booked against him and the CID notice as “vindictive,” and pointed to the fact that there were cases of protests by people, but, somehow, they did not attract the attention of the government.
Citing the sharp spike in the cases and the deaths due to the virus, Dr. Gangadhar said many medical professionals, police personnel and journalists had succumbed to the pandemic.
“What does this indicate?” he questioned, adding that no amount of such arm-twisting tactics would stop him from sticking his neck out. “We will continue to talk against what is wrong,” he asserted.
Dr. Gangadhar said that 50% of the fatalities in the State could have been prevented through timely and proper treatment. He urged the government to allocate more funds to augment facilities to check the spread of the virus.
