Lucknow,  Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday slammed the Samajwadi Party (SP) for criticising the health sector in the state and said the latter should recall the situation in its regime.

Responding to SP leader of opposition Akhilesh Yadav's charge in the state assembly, Yogi said that the SP has been in power four times and the statistics prove that there was a rise in mortality rate of mother and child during that time.

"Earlier, 1,200 to 1,500 deaths due to Encephalitis used to take place every year in eastern Uttar Pradesh. Today, because of the concerted efforts of the double engine government, the death rate has reached zero," he said.

The Chief Minister further said that Samajwadis have mastered the art of preaching to others.

"In the SP regimes, primary health centres were on the verge of closure, the number of doctors was inadequate. We have improved the response time in emergency services and are pursuing the policy of one district, one medical college."

Earlier, Akhilesh had raised the issue of inadequate health services, citing the recent incident of a man who brought his child to Lucknow from Sitapur for oxygen.

He said that the incident was an example of the situation in the health sector.

He said that there was a paucity of ambulances, stretchers and medicines in government hospitals and government doctors were following the practice of referring patients to private hospitals.

Akhilesh also raised the issue of custodial deaths and referred to the recent incident in Gonad where a power employee died in police custody.