Even as political slugfest continues over deaths of infants in Kota, Rajasthan, the figures of infant deaths in Gujarat have surfaced, putting the Vijay Rupani-led BJP government in a fix.

Within hours of a section of media reporting that 219 infants died in civil hospitals in Ahmedabad and Rajkot in December last year, the state government went into a damage-control mode and Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel addressed the media on Sunday afternoon, cancelling his two scheduled engagements.

Patel, who is also the health minister, held that the deaths of infants in government hospitals were within the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) in the state.

In Vadodara, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, who was attending a programme, refused to comment on the number of deaths.

Reports say that 134 infants died in Rajkot Civil Hospital in December 2019 and 85 died in Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, which is considered to be Asia's biggest civil hospital.

While talking about the efforts taken to reduce the IMR, Patel maintained that the rate has reduced from 62 in 1997 to 30 in 2017 and 25 in 2019.

The deputy chief minister said that Madhya Pradesh has the highest IMR—47 per 1,000. In Rajasthan it is 38, he added.

According to him, 99 per cent of the deliveries take place in hospitals and, as a result, the IMR has also gone down. Citing example of 1997, in the year which he claimed there were fewer number of institutional deliveries, the IMR was 62.

The BJP, which has made deaths of infants in Kota an issue, also started receiving criticism from the opposition. Congress leader Shaktisinh Gohil asked in a statement whether the BJP will become sensitive towards infants and children.

Citing figures, Gohil said that in a written reply to a question in the state assembly in July 2019, the Gujarat government had admitted that there are 1,42,142 malnourished children in Gujarat.