Morbi bridge collapse: Act of God or act of fraud, Digvijaya asks PM; slams BJP

Bhopal, Oct 30: Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Sunday asked if the collapse of the suspension bridge on Machchhu river in Gujarat's Morbi district, in which at least 60 persons have died, was an "act of God or an act of fraud".

Singh, who issued several tweets on the incident, was playing on the phrase that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had reportedly used at a rally while lampooning the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal after the Vivekananda Road flyover collapsed in Kolkata on March 31, 2016, killing many.

"Modi ji, is the Morbi bridge accident an Act of God or Act of Fraud?” Singh tweeted while quoting a 2016 news report. He said the bridge was under repair for six months but collapsed five days after it was reopened.

In Gujarat, where the Bharatiya Janata Party has been in power for 27 years, the Narmada canal broke during the first day's testing at village Bidra in Kutch district in July this year, while an overbridge in Bhuj, which took 8-9 years to build, had to be repaired within a year of commissioning, Singh claimed.

Meanwhile, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, state BJP president VD Sharma and State Congress Chief Kamal Nath expressed grief over the incident.