Need to work as ‘one Delhi’: Mishra

With the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Municipal Corporation blaming each other following more deaths due to complications arising from chikungunya, Delhi Water Minister Kapil Mishra on Wednesday urged all to work with a positive approach to fight the vector-borne diseases rather than indulging in politics over the same. 

“It is easy to point fingers. We should work together with a positive approach. I will approach everyone. Prevention is the key and we should work for it. We should work as ‘one Delhi’ and stop politics,” he told the media.

“The situation is serious and that is why I have written an open letter to everyone including the Congress, BJP, journalists and to my own party and party workers that now we have to stop this politics and work together on prevention. We have to work together on fixing this out,” he added. 

The Delhi government has ordered a probe into the chikungunya deaths reported in the national Capital in the last two days. Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain carried out inspections of five government hospitals on Tuesday and said there is no need to panic. Jain said, medically, there is no death due to chikungunya, but media is showing deaths due to this disease. He said, according to doctors, chikungunya is not a life-threatening disease in general, but in rare cases leads to complications that prove fatal, especially in children and old persons. 

Striking a conciliatory note, Mishra said the “barriers” among the Delhi government, the Lieutenant Governor, the civic bodies and the Centre should be “brought down” in favour of “one Delhi” as “passing the buck” would only trouble the residents of the national Capital.

“We have to fight these diseases together, forgetting politics. No matter what, we will have to be united in eliminating these diseases and mosquitoes,” Mishra quoted Kejriwal as having told him.

“Delhi’s seven MPs, 70 MLAs and 272 municipal councillors can do it together by hitting the streets and undertaking fogging exercises wherever possible. 

In fact, the MPs should lead the programme and guide the MLAs and councillors,” Mishra said.

AAP’s Delhi convener Dilip Pandey also made a similar appeal, saying everyone, including the elected representatives of BJP and AAP, should work together to combat chikungunya.