AAP Delhi State President and former Health Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj has questioned the BJP government’s intent after it failed to operationalise the fully constructed 1,470-bed Shalimar Bagh hospital, warning that the administration appears to be preparing to hand over Delhi’s newly built public hospitals to private entities. Calling such a move a betrayal of the people of Delhi, the former Delhi Health Minister said the BJP must explain how citizens will receive free treatment if hospitals built with crores of public money and on public land are simply transferred to private hands. During a media interaction on Sunday, AAP Delhi State President and former Delhi Health Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj said, “This is not just about one hospital in Shalimar Bagh; nearly 24 hospitals were started under the Arvind Kejriwal government. Thousands of new beds were to be added to Delhi’s government hospitals. The 1,470-bed hospital in Shalimar Bagh, located right next to a private hospital, is almost complete, yet the BJP government has not started work to operationalise it.”
Speaking irrelevantly
The AAP Delhi Unit Chief said, “We have received information that the BJP government is planning to hand over these new hospitals to private hands. If you privatise a hospital built with public money, how will the people benefit? This is clearly a move to benefit private hospitals. The BJP has not given any clarification so far. Instead of giving clear answers, BJP spokespersons are speaking irrelevantly. They are saying, ‘Come to the porta cabin.’ I am ready. Let us both go and inspect together. If there is anything built inside the porta cabin, we will accept it. But these are proper hospitals with thousands of beds, how can you hand them over to private hospitals?”
Responding to the BJP’s claim that the work could have been completed between 2021 and 2024, the former Delhi Health Minister said, “I agree that the hospitals were not completed within the stipulated time, but the AAP government never planned to privatise them. Whenever these hospitals are completed, they will be for the people; for free treatment, to benefit the public. But now if the BJP government wants to privatise them and hand them over to private hands, it would be a direct betrayal of the people of Delhi. How can it be justified that crores worth of public land and public funds spent by the Delhi government are simply transferred to private hospitals? This is wrong.”
These government hospitals to private hands
Reacting to the BJP’s argument that the 2019 COVID policy involved a committee and ward plan for such hospitals, Saurabh Bharadwaj dismissed it as false. “That is completely wrong information,” he said. “For the first time, I would like the Chief Minister or Health Minister to clarify the government’s plan. A party spokesperson can say anything today and change it tomorrow, but the Chief Minister or Health Minister must state clearly whether they intend to hand over these government hospitals to private hands. If such a plan exists, they should admit it and name the hospitals.”
