UP MLC Polls: SP to Field Dr Kafeel Khan From Deoria-Kushinagar Seat

Meanwhile, the paediatrician met with SP chief Akhilesh Yadav on 15 March.

The Samajwadi Party (SP) on Wednesday, 16 March decided to field paediatrician Dr Kafeel Khan, who was among the accused in the 2017 BRD hospital case in Gorakhpur, as its candidate from the Deoria-Kushinagar seat in the forthcoming Uttar Pradesh MLC polls.

(Photo: Arnica Kala/The Quint)

The Samajwadi Party (SP) on Wednesday, 16 March, decided to field paediatrician Dr Kafeel Khan, who was among the accused in the 2017 BRD hospital case in Gorakhpur, as its candidate from the Deoria-Kushinagar seat in the forthcoming Uttar Pradesh MLC polls.

SP national secretary Rajendra Chaudhary reportedly confirmed Khan's nomination on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the paediatrician met with SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, and presented him a book authored by him on the Gorakhpur hospital tragedy. Tweeting about the interaction, he wrote:

In November of 2021, the Uttar Pradesh government had terminated Dr Khan's services after scores of children died due to shortage of oxygen in Gorakhpur's Baba Raghav Das (BRD) Medical College in 2017.

However, in a letter dated 18 April 2018, Khan, who was then behind bars, wrote that he was made a scapegoat for what was clearly a failure at the administrative levels.

(With inputs from IANS and News18.)