BJP MPs stop oxygen tanker for puja, photo ops as patients gasps for breath in Madhya Pradesh

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Indore: In an unusual incident, Bharatiya Janata Party workers on Saturday (April 17) night stopped a tanker carrying over 30 tonnes of oxygen with the motive of performing puja and rituals on it. 

While the patients in the city were fighting for every breath, the politicians were holding up the oxygen supply for photo ops. The BJP MPs looked at this moment as a bizarre opportunity to make it into a media spectacle.

The incident took place days after CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan ordered that the oxygen tanks be given ambulance status, which means that the tanks will be escorted by police to ensure there is no hold-up. 

The tanker driver had started his journey from Jamnagar in Gujarat at 1 am and stopped only once to get lunch in his 700 km journey. The driver wasn’t expecting such a welcome from the local politicians. 

As per the reports, the tanker was first stopped near Chandan Nagar Square by BJP workers. The halt was a result of local president Gaurav Randive’s ambition of getting a picture with the oxygen tank. A team of media was already present on the spot to capture the incident in their cameras. Randive was later joined by minister Tulsiram Silawat. 

Later on when the tanker arrived at the oxygen plant, BJP MP Shankar Lalwani, and MLAs Ramesh Mendola and Akash Vijayvargiya also took the opportunity to welcome it and further delayed the shipment by hours, as per the reports. 

The incident was followed by heavy criticism of BJP leaders of Madhya Pradesh by the opposition. “BJP leaders in Indore celebrated the arrival of just one oxygen tanker while 10 people died in Shahdol due to lack of oxygen. This is the height of shamelessness,” said PCC spokesperson K K Mishra.

Meanwhile, the COVID-19 situation in India is grim. The country recorded yet again the highest single-day spike of COVID-19 cases with over 2.73 lakh fresh infections and 1,619 deaths in the last 24 hours on Monday, as per the health bulletin.