BJP's Tejasvi Surya blames Cong for giving alleged Bengaluru bed scam a 'communal twist'

Bengaluru south MP Tejasvi Surya alleged on Monday that Congress is trying to delay the effort of bed allocation in government and private hospitals for COVID-19 patients. 

Surya, who is the BJP Yuva Morcha president recently "exposed" the alleged scam pertaining to blocking of beds in the hospitals for COVID patients. He, however, came in for severe criticism, especially former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, for allegedly giving the issue a communal colour for seeking to know from the government officials how 16 Muslims got a job in the COVID war room in a live stream programme.

Surya gave a clarification on the issue and said, "While I was making an effort to save thousands of people from irregularities in booking hospital beds by exposing and fixing the loopholes. When we were making public a serious issue in which the High Court and the Lokayukta took upon its own cognizance, the Congress party and its eco-system tried to divert the issue by telling lies after lies."

Surya claimed that even before he went to the COVID-19 war room to expose the irregularities where he questioned the basis behind the appointment of 16 Muslims, the private agency, which got the contract to operate the COVID war room and the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) officials had removed them from the job.

He explained, "I had only asked how these people (16 Muslims) were appointed, which agency recruited them but I never said they were culprits or they belonged to a particular community or faith."

He was holding the press conference to explain the introduction of new mobile application-based technology for booking beds in the hospital for COVID treatment. The MP explained that the new technological intervention would do away with any middleman, bribe or influence of powerful people as it would auto-upgrade the status of the COVID patient seeking treatment through the government quota. He said in the next 100 hours, he would upgrade the system making it further foolproof.

Bengaluru bed scam

Tejasvi Surya had alleged irregularities in the allotment of beds to COVID patients in the city and accused the BBMP war room officials of running a racket to falsely book beds in return for money. Surya also claimed to have unearthed a scam in the allotment of beds by the BBMP war room officials and accused them of falsely booking beds that are meant for COVID positive patients in exchange for money. The parliamentarian claimed that over 4065 beds in Bengaluru have been booked illegally so far and detailed on the modus operandi of the scam, noting that beds were falsely allotted for 12 hours during which BBMP officials allegedly attempted to 'sell the beds'.

(With PTI Inputs)