Congress leader also visited interacted with families of the deceased persons, expressing condolences and consoling them
INDORE — The Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi met patients and families affected by the vomiting and diarrhoea outbreak linked to water contamination in Madhya Pradesh’s Indore city on Saturday.
Congress leader was was welcomed on arriving at the Indore Airpot by senior Congress leaders including Madhya Pradesh Congress president Jitu Patwari, Leader of Opposition in the State Assembly Umang Singhar, former Chief Minister and Rajya Sabha MP Digvijaya Singh and former minister Sajjan Singh Verma earlier in the morning.
After a formal meeting with state Congress leaders and workers at Devi Ahilya Bai Holkar Airport, Rahul Gandhi visited the Bombay Hospital where nearly a dozen people affected by the contaminated water are undergoing treatment and enquired about their health and met their family members.
Madhya Pradesh Congress president Jitu Patwari and party leader Umang Singhar accompanied Gandhi during the visit.
Rahul Gandhi meets kin of contaminated water tragedy victims in Indore’s Bhagirathpura. — X photo
Gandhi also visited the Bhagirathpura area, where the outbreak was reported last month, and interacted with families of the deceased persons, expressing condolences and consoling them, reports PTI.
Police made elaborate security arrangements in Bhagirathpura ahead of Gandhi’s visit and installed barricades at several locations.
Residents of Bhagirathpura have claimed that 24 people have died so far in the vomiting and diarrhoea outbreak that broke out in the locality last month. The state government, however, in its status report before the Madhya Pradesh High Court, has pegged the toll at seven, including a five-month-old infant.
Meanwhile, a ‘death audit’ report prepared by a committee of the government-run Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College indicated that the deaths of 15 people in Bhagirathpura could be linked to the outbreak in some manner.
The administration has paid compensation of Rs 2 lakh each to the families of 21 people who died after the outbreak began, according to the report.
