The Congress on Tuesday said it will move a privilege motion against the Health Minister for misleading Parliament that no deaths were reported by any State or Union Territory (UT) specifically because of shortage of oxygen.
“In every State we saw how many patients died due to lack of oxygen. We know. The Minister misled the House. We will move a privilege motion against that Minister,” Congress general secretary and Rajya Sabha MP K.C. Venugopal told reporters at a press conference.
It was in response to his written question that the Minister of State for Health had said no deaths were specifically attributed to shortage of oxygen by any State or a Union Territory.
“Read that carefully. Minister did not say there were ‘no deaths’. He said ‘no REPORTS of deaths’.A blind and deaf government will not be able to “see” or “hear” the truth,” former Finance Minister P. Chidamabaram said on twitter, adding that the Narendra Modi government had “perfected the art of facing every tragedy with bluff and bluster”.
The Congress also announced that it would hit the streets on Thursday over violation of privacy and march to every Raj Bhavan over the Pegasus snooping controversy.
“The Supreme Court should investigate this and the proceedings should be held in camera . A white paper should be presented in Parliament and the Minister should tell clearly that the government or any other agency used Pegasus here or not,” former Union Minister Kapil Sibal said at a separate media interaction.