West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday reeled off seven-year-old figures to establish her point that the dengue situation in the state was much worse in 2005 during the Left Front rule than it is today. She also cited statistics of three southern states — Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu — to prove her point: dengue situation is not as bad in Bengal as in other states. She also accused a section of doctors of passing off deaths by cardiac arrest/stroke as dengue casualty. She did not spare the media either for publishing exaggerating accounts of the outbreak of the disease and thereby creating needless panic. “There has been only three deaths by dengue in the state and the number of dengue cases is 683,” Ms Banerjee told mediapersons at the Writers’ Buildings after a high-level meeting.
Rejecting her claims, Leader of the Opposition Surjya Kanta Mishra said that the chief minister was in a state of denial. He pointed out that she had merely quoted figures from the records of the government hospitals while totally ignoring the records of large number of nursing homes and private hospitals.
“We have information of 2,000 cases of dengue in the state and 23 deaths,” Dr Mishra added.
Facing constant criticism for its failure to combat the disease in the city, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation was scheduled to release a White Paper on dengue on Tuesday afternoon.