All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) MP Imtiaz Jaleel said he would pay Rs 10 lakh to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and his deputy Devendra Fadnavis if they sat in the hot sun for three hours.
Jaleel, MP from Aurangabad in central Maharashtra, hit out at the state government and organizers of Sunday's Maharashtra Bhushan award ceremony in Navi Mumbai. As many as 14 persons who attended the event have died due to heat stroke so far.
I congratulate the person who got the Maharashtra Bhushan award (Appasaheb Dharmadhikari). But unfortunately politics is clearly seen in this incident. Lakhs of people are asked to attend an event in the afternoon. The leaders sit in a tent while the people who put them on stage are asked to sit in the sun.
I ask Amit Shah, Devendra Fadnavis and the Chief Minister, what is the cost of your life that you decide the cost of the life of the deceased people as five lakh rupees you sit for three hours in the hot sun. I will pay you ten lakh rupees, he said, adding that he was not wishing that anything unfortunate should happen to them.
By announcing ex-gratia of Rs five lakh, the government has mocked the kin of the deceased, the AIMIM MP said, adding that an assistance of at least Rs 50 lakh should have been announced. He also said that inviting people in such large numbers for the award ceremony was dirty politics.
This event never took place in the open ground and with so many people in the past, he said, claiming that crores of rupees were spent on its organisation. A case of murder should be registered over the incident, he demanded.