The fire mishap in Hotel Swarna Palace is a major tragedy without a doubt. Electric short circuit is said to be cause of the blaze which claimed several lives and injured many. It is known that police has filed cases against Dr. Ramesh of Ramesh Hospitals as well as Swarna Palace management. Dr Ramesh is absconding and has not been arrested so far. Police in the name of investigation called in officials and doctors from all the branches of Ramesh hospitals in other cities for questioning though the accident took place in Vijayawada.
In the meantime, a concerted campaign was launched by the ruling party to politicize the tragedy by linking Dr. Ramesh with TDP since he belongs to the Kamma community. His name is only Dr. Ramesh Babu, but suddenly posts on social media began to appear changing his name to ‘Ramesh Chowdary’. As if this was not enough, the ruling party leaders began making allegations that Ramesh was hidden by former Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu. They tried to brand Naidu as the leader of Kammas only.
While hearing the bail petition by Dr. Ramesh, the High Court posed a simple question: As electrical short circuit is cited as the cause of the accident, are the authorities who permitted to run Covid care centre in the hotel not equally responsible?
This question may appear simple, but has deeper implications. Why did the government miss this simple logic? Why didn’t the authorities who accorded permission carry out all safety checks at the hotel? Why did they rush to give permission? It is surprising that the government had not looked into this aspect before rushing to put blame squarely on Ramesh Hospitals.
The Home minister Mekatoti Sucharita herself stated that short circuit was the reason for the fire mishap. When the premises was not owned by the hospital, how can it be held responsible for its wiring failure? The hospital can be held responsible with regard to failures concerning medical care but not for an accident that has occurred in a premises owned by others. These are questions that crop up even in the minds of common people. But the government has not looked into them for reasons best known to it.
