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Journalism of Courage
While expressing condolences for the families who lost their dear ones in the Morbi bridge collapse in Gujarat Sunday, the Opposition accused the BJP government of “negligence”. And asked if it was an “act of God” or “an act of fraud”, alluding to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s line of attack against the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal when a flyover collapsed in Kolkata on March 31, 2016, killing many.
Saying the collapse seems to be a case of “criminal negligence” and “gross misgovernance”, the Congress demanded a judicial inquiry and said the guilty must be brought to book. Asked about the incident during his press conference in Telangana, on the sidelines of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, Rahul Gandhi said he doesn’t want to “politicise the incident” as it would be tantamount to disrespecting those who died.
Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh, who is in Gujarat for poll campaigning and visited Morbi Monday, asked why Prime Minister Narendra Modi had not visited the site despite being in the state. “His government programmes are on. But he has not come here.”
Singh also sought the resignation of the BJP government on the matter, while dubbing the formation of a probe committee by it “leepapoti (cover-up)”.
Late on Monday night, Modi chaired a meeting on the Morbi bridge collapse at the Raj Bhavan in Gandhinagar.
Earlier, addressing an event to mark Sardar Patel’s birth anniversary at Statue of Unity in Kevadia, he said: “I am in Kevadia, but my heart goes out to those who died in the Morbi tragedy.” Getting emotional, he added: “On one hand, there is a heart laden with grief, while on the other, there is the path of karma (duty) and kartavya (responsibility).” He said it was this path that had led him to Kevadia.
Rajasthan Chief Minister and senior supervisor of the Congress for the Gujarat elections Ashok Gehlot, who also visited Morbi, demanded that a committee headed by a High Court judge probe the matter and submit a report within three months. A probe panel formed of officials was not enough, he said.
Gehlot said a number of things need to be investigated. “Had it been a natural calamity, it would have been a different matter. But, this has become a man-made type (calamity).”
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said: “Who was involved in the construction of the bridge, its quality, why the bridge was opened in a hurry after its renovation, what is the reason (for the collapse), who allowed so many people to enter… There should be an inquiry into all these aspects.”
Digvijaya Singh asked when was it that the Morbi Municipal Committee had signed the contract with the Oreva group for maintaining and managing the bridge and what were the conditions of the contract. “Did the contractor take permission from the Municipal Committee for starting the bridge, did the contractor inform the District Administration, was the SP, Morbi, informed by the contractor, was the District/PS police present at the site when the bridge collapsed, why did the police allow more entry tickets to be issued than the capacity… Isn’t it a complete failure of the Gujarat Govt administration?” he tweeted.
Youth Congress head Srinivas B V tweeted in Hindi: “In this way, due to the Act of Fraud of the Government of Gujarat, 141+ lives were lost… There were more than 500 people on the bridge that had a capacity of 100, not forcibly but by buying tickets… Where was the DM? Where was the police? Where was the CMO? How did the bridge open without a fitness certificate?”
He added: “The Gujarat government responsible for 141+ deaths is so serious that not even a single officer has been transferred.”
In a separate tweet, he shared excerpts from Modi’s speech in Kevadia, Gujarat, to mark Rashtriya Ekta Diwas, coinciding with Sardar Patel’s birth anniversary, and said: “There was a speech of full 27 minutes. The government event continued instead of the condolence meeting… But there is only one principle of Saheb, The Show Must Go On!!”
In a Twitter post, Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi said : “Reminds me of the Act of God and Act of fraud speech given by the Prime Minister when a bridge in WB collapsed.”
The Congress general secretary communications in-charge Jairam Ramesh shared images of the Bharat Jodo Yatris observing two-minute silence in memory of those who died in the tragedy.
