10 dead in Indore building collapse, CM announces ex-gratia of ₹2 lakh
The death toll in Saturday night’s hotel collapse in Indore rose to 10 even as the search and rescue operation was called off on Sunday morning. The condition of two injured persons is still critical, authorities said.
In the wake of the incident, district collector Nishant Warwade has ordered a magisterial inquiry, while Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Sunday announced an ex-gratia of ₹2 lakh each for the next of kin of those killed in the collapse. He also granted a compensation of ₹50,000 for those injured in the incident.
Among the dead was the manager of the hotel, Harish Soni, while six of the deceased are yet to be identified, additional district magistrate Ajaydev Sharma said. Two of the dead were women.
While the exact reason behind the collapse is yet to be determined, Soni’s family members said he had told them that a portion of the hotel had fallen down in the morning and he was getting the roof repaired. It is possible that the repair work triggered the collapse, though no municipal official was willing to come on record. A team of fire brigade, district’s disaster management authority and Indore Municipal Corporation officials carried out the rescue operations throughout Saturday night.
The team said the possibility of anyone else being trapped under the rubble was unlikely. Apart from a lodge-cum-eatery, the building housed several shops.
DIG Harinarayanchari Mishra said two beat cops were among the first to reach the site and rescue two injured people. “The building was old and renovated at least thrice. The basement was always filled with water,” said Vijay Mishra, who runs a travel agency near the bus stand where the building collapsed.
INDORE: THE ADDITIONAL DISTRICT MAGISTRATE SAID THERE WERE TWO WOMEN AMONG THE DEAD AND SIX ARE
YET TO BE IDENTIFIED
As 2019 approaches, political parties such as the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have stepped up efforts to forge a wider pact to keep the BJP out of power. West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee was in Delhi last week and met a range of political actors; she now intends to travel to state capitals. This comes in the backdrop of the BJP appearing slightly more vulnerable than it has so far in its term. It lost the Uttar Pradesh Lok Sabha bypolls to the combine of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP); it also suffered setbacks in the Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh by-elections. Regional political forces suddenly see a chance of re-emerging as important players in national politics . But this is not the first time they have sought to play a pivotal role in national politics. In 1996, a group of regional parties and the Left formed a United Front (UF) government. That formation too came about with the explicit objective of keeping the BJP out of power. The Congress supported the coalition from outside. This time too, regional party leaders such as Mamata have indicated that the Congress should be ready to support such an initiative.
The Congress, while expressing its openness to alliances, kept open the question of leadership of such a coalition in its political resolution at the party plenary. In a recent interview, Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury indicated that the country may see a 1996 type situation in 2019. So what happened back then?