The tussle between the Centre and the Delhi government over not implementing Ayushman Bharat escalated on Wednesday with Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena hitting out at AAP chief and former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, claiming that he had deprived people of the benefits of the healthcare scheme to prevent the “false model” promoted by him from getting “exposed”.
In a lengthy post on X in Hindi, Mr Saxena said he does not pay attention to Mr Kejriwal’s baseless statements but was forced to do so this time because it concerned the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, which benefits crores of Indians.
“You have kept lakhs of people of Delhi deprived of this scheme till now only because of the fear that its implementation may reveal the truth of the false health model being promoted by you and your habit of taking false credit for everything may get exposed,” Mr Saxena claimed, adding that Mr Kejriwal had opposed Ayushman Bharat because he wanted his name associated with it.
After Prime Minister Narendra Modi had criticised the Delhi and West Bengal governments for failing to implement the Ayushman Bharat health insurance scheme out of “political interests”, the AAP chief had accused the PM of indulging in politics over public health. In a post on Tuesday, he had also questioned the benefits under the scheme, saying the Comptroller and Auditor General had found several irregularities, and claimed a similar initiative by the Delhi government had benefited lakhs of people.
Continuing his scathing attack, Mr Saxena said the Delhi government’s health department had recommended implementing the Ayushman Bharat scheme in June 2018 and the then health minister had given permission for doing so.
“After that, in August 2018, your government talked about naming the Ayushman Bharat scheme ‘Chief Minister Aam Aadmi Health Insurance Scheme Ayushman Bharat’. The Government of India, which bears most of the cost of this scheme, also agreed to your self-glorification by simply asking you to use your name after ‘Ayushman Bharat’,” the lieutenant governor wrote.
He said that the implementation of the scheme was also announced in the Delhi Assembly in 2020-21 but Mr Kejriwal’s “hunger for publicity” has not allowed it to happen.
‘Web Of Illusion’
Strongly criticising the Delhi health model, Mr Saxena termed it a “web of illusion” created by Mr Kejriwal’s “propaganda machinery”.
“You have been suppressing the CAG reports of the health department for years. You do not allow these CAG reports to be presented in the Vidhan Sabha lest they expose your web of illusions. Perhaps Delhi would be the only example where the High Court orders the health minister to appear in person and asks him to make medicines available to the people. Perhaps Delhi is the only example where the honourable courts had to give orders to repair the CT scan machine in the biggest hospital of the Delhi government,” he said.
The lieutenant governor also accused the Delhi government of not revising the “Essential Drug List” since 2013.
“In the last 10 years, the people of Delhi have been very troubled by your hollow health model. I hope that you (Mr Kejriwal) will put politics aside, accept the truth and implement the Ayushman Bharat scheme for the people of Delhi as soon as possible. Since you are no longer the chief minister, you will probably not feel the need to name the Ayushman Bharat scheme after the chief minister,” Mr Saxena sneered.
‘More Procedures Covered’
BJP’s IT Cell head Amit Malviya also took to X to “expose” Mr Kejriwal’s lies on Ayushman Bharat and the Delhi healthcare programme and said that while the former chief minister has claimed that there is no upper limit under the ‘Delhi Arogya Kosh’, the cap is actually Rs 5 lakh.
This post exposes Arvind Kejriwal’s lies on Ayushman Bharat and Delhi’s Healthcare Programme. Read.
Arvind Kejriwal has been refusing to implement the Ayushman Bharat Yojana in Delhi. He is citing the following reasons:
1. As per Arvind Kejriwal, Ayushman Bharat offers only a… https://t.co/Mf0mDDkwqM
— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) October 30, 2024
Among other things, Mr Malviya also said that the Delhi scheme does not factor in people who are over the age of 70 and are not voters within the national capital and that the Ayushman Bharat covers many more procedures.
AAP’s Take
Mr Kejriwal had said he had yet to meet a person who got treatment through the Ayushman Bharat scheme and claimed that, under the Delhi government’s initiative, each person in the city receives free medical treatment and the government bears the entire cost whether it’s a 5-rupee pill or treatment worth Rs 1 crore.
Delhi Health Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj also claimed that Ayushman Bharat is a “failed” scheme and said poor patients from states like Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Rajasthan – where the scheme had been implemented – visited hospitals in the capital for surgeries.
“Delhi government hospitals provide free treatment unlike the paid treatment provided in BJP-ruled states. Delhi government health schemes are far more effective than Ayushman Bharat scheme,” he asserted.