BHUBANESWAR: Odisha health and family welfare minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak resigned on Friday amid mounting opposition pressure over the SUM Hospital fire on Monday that killed 25 people."Health minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak has sent me his resignation letter. He has resigned on moral ground. I have accepted his resignation and sent it to the governor," chief minister Naveen
Patnaik told reporters here.Apart from the opposition, a section within the BJD had turned against him due to sheer competition in constituency level politics in Kendrapada and Jagatsinghpur districts (Atanu represents Mahakalpada assembly segment in the Vidhan Sabha). Atanu's detractors in BJD said his removal would help Naveen keep the government's image intact. Already on a spot over a series of issues involving the health department, the hospital fire only compounded Atanu's problems. He has been in the eye of a storm ever since unusually high number of children died at government-run Sishu Bhavan in Cuttack in November last year following which Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan had visited the Cuttack hospital.
Then came the shocking visuals of Dana Majhi carrying his wife's body on his shoulders in August. The spotlight was still on Atanu over the ongoing Japanese encephalitis outbreak in Malkangiri that killed around 60 children when the SUM tragedy happened.
The perceived closeness of Atanu with SUM Hospital chairman Manoj Nayak had given fodder to both the opposition parties and his rivals in BJD to corner him on the hospital fire. Pointing out that the minister's wife works in a college run by Manoj Nayak-led SOA Group of institutions, BJP has raised doubts about an impartial probe into the SUM Hospital fire tragedy.
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