Ramadoss misses 'Gandhigiri' welcome at AIIMS

New Delhi, Oct 11: It was 'Gandhigiri' welcome complete with hoards of red roses and ''Get Well Soon'' messages for Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss at AIIMS this morning.

But Dr Ramadoss, who was visiting the institute to review the dengue situation, gave it all a miss. He did not visit the hostel where the ''special arrangements'' were laid out due to ''paucity of time''.

The resident doctors and students had planned the Hindi movie ''Lage Raho Munnabhai'' inspired peaceful ''protest'' to express their disappointment with the Health Minister over his ''late'' visit to the institute which is facing a dengue deluge.

''We wanted to expressed our disappointment with the late awakening of the Health Minister and his lackadaisical attitude towards AIIMS,'' said AIIMS Resident Doctors' Association Joint Secretary Kaushal Kant Mishra.

''This is a satyagrah for us. We will follow Gandhiji peaceful means of protest,'' he added.

But why the ''Get Well Soon'' messages? ''Dr Ramadoss is mentally ill and hopefully he will recover soon. AIIMS has been his favourite target for a longtime and now we hope he will leave alone to serve the people,'' Dr Mishra explained.

The AIIMS RDA, Faculty and students are at loggerheads with Dr Ramadoss, who is also the AIIMS President, over the OBC reservation issue. The anti-quota agitation, spearheaded by Youth for Equality, was run from AIIMS.

Dr Ramadoss, who supports reservation for the OBCs, had even sacked AIIMS Director P Venugopal on disclipinary grounds. But the Delhi High Court stayed the move and Dr Venugopal was reinstated.

UNI

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