Chennai, Oct 14 (PTI) Objecting to the remark of acentral team member who termed the 40 dengue deaths in TamilNadu "minimal", the DMK said today that the comment wasinsulting and "trivialising" the lives of the people of thestate.
Ashutosh Biswas, a professor of medicine at the All IndiaInstitute of Medical Sciences and member of the central teamdeputed to examine the dengue situation in Tamil Nadu, saidyesterday that the 40 deaths since January were "minimal".
"It is nothing...no need to create panic," he said.
Referring to the remark, DMK working president M K Stalinasked, "how he expressed such an opinion? Who gave him courageto say so?""The remark is trivialising the lives of the Tamil peopleand it is insulting," the leader of opposition in the assemblysaid.
Stalin asked if Chief Minister K Palaniswami too"accepted that view". He said how the chief minister was notobjecting to the view, which denigrated those who died.
Stating that the Tamil Nadu government while seeking Rs256 crore from the Centre to tackle the dengue situation hadmentioned in its report that "18 people" died of dengue,Stalin said it was a "lie".
He demanded the ouster of Biswas from the central team,and suggested that the central team avoid making such remarks.
The central team should give recommendations to the Uniongovernment in a way the state government gets the fundingsought to check the spread of dengue, he said.
"I urge Union minister J P Nadda to advise the centralpanel to undertake inspection in such a way to help eradicatedengue." PTI VGN SSABH.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.