Toxic Cough Syrup: Kamal Nath finally comes to his home constituency Chhindwara, 40 days after first kid’s death

Former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister and record nine-time Congress Lok Sabha Member from Chhindwara, Kamal Nath, finally managed to take out some time on Sunday and reached Parasia in his home constituency to meet the families of the deceased kids who have succumbed to kidney failures suspected due to the consumption of the now-banned toxic cough syrup ‘Coldrif’.

Kamal Nath came to Chhindwara 40 days after the first child’s death, which had occurred on 3 September, following which, around 25 kids have succumbed to date.

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Nath, along with his former Chhindwara Lok Sabha Member son Nakul Nath, came from New Delhi to Chhindwara by a special plane, which landed at Chhindwara’s Imlikheda airstrip.

From there, the father-son duo boarded a helicopter and reached Parasia, where the bereaved families had been assembled at the Utsav Marriage Lawn to meet the two leaders.

Neither Kamal Nath nor Nakul went to the home of any family. Nonetheless, Kamal Nath blamed the Madhya Pradesh BJP government and administration for gross negligence in the matter.

“The state government is entirely responsible for the incident, as it allowed the use of the medicine, manufactured in Tamil Nadu, in Madhya Pradesh without any testing”, Kamal Nath told media persons at Parasia.

Demanding the strictest punishment for those responsible, the former Union Minister reiterated his demand that the state government must pay Rs 50 lakh compensation to the family of each victim. As of now, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Dr Mohan Yadav has announced a compensation of Rs four lakh to each family.

“Seeing the grief of the affected families brought tears to my eyes. This is not just a case of deaths due to consuming toxic cough syrup, but killings caused by administrative negligence”, Nath alleged.

Earlier, the Madhya Pradesh government banned the cough syrup, following the outrage over the unfortunate deaths of so many kids.

The MP Police constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT), which arrested Ranganathan Govindan (75), owner of ‘M/s Sresan Pharmaceuticals’ of Kancheepuram in Tamil Nadu, which manufactured Coldrif cough syrup.

He was brought to Parasia and produced in a court on 10 October. The court remanded him to police custody for 10 days.

MP CM Dr Yadav had ordered the suspension of two Drug Inspectors and the removal of the state’s drug controller from his post.

A government doctor, Praveen Soni, accused of prescribing Coldrif cough syrup to most of the kids, who eventually died of kidney failure, was also arrested and subsequently suspended by the state health department.