UPA and Mayabati govts playing with the poor in UP:BJP

NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party, which has decided to make crime and corruption its election themes in Uttar Pradesh, has brought the Mayawati regime and the UPA government in its line of fire over the alleged bungling of National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) funds saying they were hand-in-glove in the “rampant loot”.

Intensifying its offensive against political rivals in the state, BJP said the health scheme had become Mayawati’s “wealth mission” and the Centre did not take any action against her government for “non-implementation or misuse” of NHRM funds. It said the Centre had allocated Rs 794 crore in 2005-06,Rs 1,956 crore in 2009-10 and Rs 1,747 crore for 2010-11.

“Both the central and state governments are playing with the health and lives of millions of poor people in Uttar Pradesh. BJP, therefore, demands a CBI inquiry into the NHRM scam under the supervision of the high court,” party spokesman Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi told reporters here. He said the responsibility for monitoring such programmes squarely fell on the central government and added that during the entire period there was no meeting of the monitoring committee.

Incidentally, the Centre’s NRHM review team, constituted in May after Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi expressed concerns, has reported serious violations of procedures in the use of NRHM funds. Naqvi alleged that ministers and bureaucrats close to the chief minister were playing the role of middlemen whereby the NHRM funded tenders were being assigned to agencies and individuals without following procedures.

“This is contributing to growing infant mortality, malnutrition and virtual non-availability of prenatal and neo-natal care in the state,” he said. The BJP also targeted the BSP and SP over the land acquisition issue in Greater Noida.