Hamirpur/Lucknow: On Monday, Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav criticized the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh after a video surfaced showing a pregnant woman in Hamirpur district being transported to a hospital on a bullock cart. This was allegedly due to an ambulance’s failure to reach her village. Yadav urged the state’s health minister to pay attention to the people’s struggles beyond ceremonial appearances. Sharing the video on X, he accused the government of “turning ambulances into bullock carts” and challenged its claims of development. He remarked, “Under the BJP’s misrule, ambulances in Uttar Pradesh have turned into ‘bull-ances’. Can a trillion-dollar economy function using bullock carts?
The chief minister should assess the state of roads and ambulances during his next field visit, or utilize Delhi’s binoculars or drones if necessary,” he commented in Hindi. The incident took place in Parsadwa Dera Gau Ghat Chhani village, where the woman’s 60-year-old father-in-law, Krishna Kumar Kevat, transported her approximately seven kilometers to the Sisolor Community Health Centre on a bullock cart after the ambulance became stuck due to the muddy, unpaved road. The journey across the swampy and uneven path took nearly three hours. Doctors informed the family that the delivery was still two days away and discharged her after initial treatment.
Residents noted that around 500 people in the area encounter similar difficulties every monsoon when the road becomes a muddy swamp, isolating them from nearby towns. “In emergencies, we have no choice but to carry patients on our shoulders or bullock carts,” stated social worker Arun Nishad, adding that villagers had protested for six days in March last year, demanding proper road construction. The then sub-divisional magistrate had promised that work would commence after the Lok Sabha elections, but more than a year later, no progress has been made.