By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, October 21, 2016 : Odisha health and family welfare minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak on Friday resigned over the SUM Hospital fire on Monday that killed 25 people.

“Health minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak has sent me his resignation letter. He has resigned on moral ground. I have accepted his resignation and sent it to the governor,” chief minister Naveen Patnaik told reporters here.

Both the opposition and a section within the ruling Biju Janta Dal [BJD] had turned against Atanu, who had been facing flaks over him a series of issues involving the health department. In fact, the hospital fire compounded Atanu’s problems as he was accused to be close to SUM Hospital chairman Manoj Nayak.

Incidentally, the minister’s wife works in a college run by Manoj Nayak-led SOA Group of institutions.

Earlier, Atanu has been in the eye of a storm ever since unusually high number of children died at government-run Sishu Bhavan in Cuttack in November last year following which Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan had visited the Cuttack hospital.

What was shocking most is the publicity across the globe of Dana Majhi carrying his wife’s body on his shoulders in August. The spotlight was still on Atanu over the ongoing Japanese encephalitis outbreak in Malkangiri that killed around 60 children when the SUM tragedy happened.