BJP’s Bangalore South MP Tejasvi Surya has rejected allegations that he ‘communalised’ the issue of irregularities in Covid-19 bed-blocking in Bengaluru.
There is outrage on social media over a video of Surya reading out a list of Muslim names, which has gone viral. The Opposition Congress said Surya chose to target Muslims.
“Two days before I went to the war room, the Joint Commissioner informed me that he had removed a few people and gave me the list. That list had all these names. I merely read out those names and asked how they were appointed, on what basis and by which agency. I never made any allegations against any of them. But, when have facts ever been important to the Congress or to journalists who sympathise with them?” Surya told DH.
“They are now trying to portray that I got them removed. But, they had been removed already. To say that those people were sacked because of me is factually wrong,” Surya, the BJP Yuva Morcha national president, added.
Earlier in the day, BBMP chief commissioner Gaurav Gupta corroborated this. “According to the information I have, these 15-17 people were sacked a couple of days ago. They were hired through a company, a contracting agency. All staff in the Covid-19 war rooms are temporary,” Gupta said.
Surya also said that other statements that were made during his visit to the war-room on Tuesday “were not mine”.
Surya, along with MLAs Ravi Subramanya (Basavanagudi), Satish Reddy (Bommanahalli) and Uday Garudachar (Chickpet) visited the BBMP South war room Tuesday and went public with their claims, for which they showed specific examples as proof, on irregularities in blocking beds for Covid-19 patients.
After their visit, the list of the 17 Muslims whose names Surya read out began circulating on social media along with that of BBMP Joint Commissioner Sarfaraz Khan.
While Khan clarified that he had nothing to do with the war room, Surya called him up to clarify. “(Khan) had written a Facebook post. I called him up as a goodwill and genuine gesture. I told him I never brought up his name and that he need not feel that he was being targeted,” the MP said.
“Others may want to divert attention, but my focus remains only and only on the beds scam that is costing the lives of the people of Bengaluru,” Surya said. "As we speak, we're trying to build a new software for bed allotment."