The controversy surrounding the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI)’s daily distribution of free home-packed meals to patients and their caregivers frequenting government hospitals continued to simmer in Kerala on Tuesday.

Health Minister K. Muraleedharan, who had flip-flopped on his statement that the government would not allow such public-spiritedness under any political banner in State-owned hospital precincts, accused Leader of the Opposition Pinarayi Vijayan of batting for those seeking to appropriate public space “using philanthropy as a pretext.”

Mr Vijayan had earlier slammed the United Democratic Front (UDF) government for resenting DYFI’s free distribution of meals to needy patients “out of political spite.” He also accused the government of seeking to outlaw free meal distribution on State-funded hospital grounds without putting in place a viable and sustainable system to provide daily nourishment to a significant section of the population that relies on government hospitals for affordable medical care. 

Mr. Vijayan said: “Only those who are callous and cruel would seek to inject the poison of petty-minded partisan politics into such exemplary and relentless acts of humanism”. 

He said DYFI collects food packets from homes and the voluntary work “transcends caste, communal and political differences.” Mr Vijayan had also asked what benefit the UDF government sought to gain from “denying” ordinary working-class hospital goers food. He also alleged that the public health sector in Kerala was in shambles, including pestilence prevention, control and mitigation. 

In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Mr Muraleedharan dared Mr Vijayan to answer why the previous Left Democratic Front (LDF) government, which the latter headed, failed to eject the Seva Bharathi, a voluntary service arm of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, from “illegally appropriated” space in public-funded hospitals. “Did you (Mr Vijayan) fear inviting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s ire?”, he asked. 

Mr Muraleedharan said the UDF had inherited “a weakened public health system laid to ruins” by the previous LDF government. He alleged that leptospirosis had claimed the lives of 1,500 persons during the tenure of the previous LDF government. In contrast, Mr Muraleedharan claimed that leptospirosis fatalities had plummeted remarkably since the UDF government took over.

He said the LDF’s “tall claims about stellar public health service delivery were a public relations stunt, which the people saw through and voted the UDF to power with a stunning majority.”