Jaynarayan Vyas takes objection to Azad’s remark on states

Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad’s attack on state governments for alleged deficiency on their part in tackling swine flu today did not go down well with Gujarat Minister J N Vyas, who objected to his “use of unconstitutional” words.

Sparks flew at the meeting of State Health Ministers review meeting of National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) when Azad did not mince words in attacking state governments, saying they did not do enough to tackle spread of swine flu.

Azad said, “We (Centre) can go up to a point. Don’t expect us to go beyond a point…we are suffering for the past three months and you (states) were having ‘aish’ (good time).”

Asking state governments to shoulder responsibility “which they haven’t done”, Azad claimed that he had been trying to contact some health ministers and they had not returned his calls.

“Each state should have an institutionalised mechanism to deal with it (swine flu) and shoulder their responsibility effectively…Bloody I am not interested in figures. I want to know how many beds have been prepared,” he said.

Vyas immediately shot back, “We are not here to listen to these words. You are a federal minister and we look forward to you.”

To this, Azad replied that he was not naming any state and some states had indeed done good work. “I am saying only some states had not done enough.”

Later talking to reporters, Vyas said, “We accept that health is a state subject but he could not use words like ‘bloody’ and states having a good time. It is collective responsibility to deal with the issue. I objected when he said that we are keeping alert here and in states, we are having a good time.