A BJP worker from Tamil Nadu has filed a police complaint against DMK Youth Wing Secretary Udhayanidhi Stalin, alleging that the latter stole a brick from the yet-to-be-built AIIMS hospital in Madurai. The complaint was filed after Udhayanidhi held up a brick at a rally to highlight the delay in building AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences).
AIIMS in Madurai was promised by the AIADMK and the BJP. Reacting to the complaint with sarcasm, Udhayanidhi said, “A genius from the BJP has gone to the police station and complained that I have stolen a brick from the AIIMS campus,” he said. Udhayanidhi also added, "This means that even the BJP accepts that AIIMS is only bricks now and nothing more.”
On Wednesday, the DMK leader held up a brick in Madurai and said that he “has brought AIIMS hospital with him”. Adding that only “bricks were there in the allotted 250-acre-land, Udhay asked what the BJP and AIADMK had done in three years.
In January 2019, PM Modi had come to Madurai to lay the foundation stone of the AIIMS campus in Thoppur. Since then, there has been no progress with regard to building construction. This delay has made AIIMS a hot poll topic among opposition parties in Tamil Nadu.
After Udhayanidhi’s speech, BJP leaders has dismissed him calling it “cheap tactics”.
In 2019, the BJP government announced 12 AIIMS institutions across India in Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, Gujarat and Jharkhand.
Funds have reportedly been allocated to 11 of these projects. In Tamil Nadu, the campus will be set up by availing a loan from JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency).
Su Venkatesan, CPI Leader and Madurai Loo Sabha MP has been raising the issue of the delay in the AIIMS campus since 2019. He also alleged that neither the BJP nor the ruling AIADMK has any interest in building the hospital.