'Has someone died in your family?' Mulayam snaps at journalists

Apparently perturbed over the possible negative fallout of the strike by doctors, who protested the brutal assault by the police and supporters of a Samajwadi Party (SP) legislator, party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav on Thursday gave vent to his anger on the media.

“Has anyone from your family died because of the doctors’ strike?”, an upset Mulayam shot back at the media personnel, when they sought his comments on the strike saying that several patients had died for want of treatment.

“Who has died in your family? Has any one from your village died? If you (media) stop publishing reports on the strike, the death figure will come down automatically,” he said. He added that the media was “unnecessarily” giving importance to the doctors’ strike. 

The BJP sharply criticised Mulayam’s remarks and termed them “insensitive”. “The comment shows that the SP supremo does not care for human lives,” said BJP leader Vijay Bahadur Pathak.

Earlier, too, Mulayam had triggered controversy by his remarks on the riot victims living in relief tents in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli districts. He had said that those living at the relief camps were not riot victims but were “agents of the Congress and the BJP”. The SP supremo’s statement had invited wrath of Muslim leaders.

Incidentally, Mulayam was not the only one from his party or the UP government to have made such comments.

Senior SP leader Ateeq Ahmed had termed the riot victims living in the relief camps “professional beggars”. “There are beggars in every community. Those who are still living at camps, have begging as their profession,” he had remarked.