NEW DELHI: BJP MP Gautam Gambhir on Friday alleged that low rate of testing had led to the spread of coronavirus in the national capital and the Delhi government had done nothing to ramp up testing facilities. Critisizing the government for not making adequate arrangements to improve the condition, the cricketer-turned-politician said that people had been running from pillar to post and standing in long queues for testing at various labs.
“Kejriwal government is mainly responsible for this high number of deaths in the city. People were made to pay Rs 2,400 for RT-PCR tests and Rs 1,300 for antigen tests. Kejriwal failed to rein it in. It is only he who can answer why he always works against common man’s interest,” said Gambhir at a press conference.
Delhi BJP president Adesh Gupta, Leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly Ramvir Singh Bidhuri and Northwest Delhi MP Hansraj Hans were present at the press conference. Gambhir said that the current wave of Covid pandemic has attained monstrous form. The East Delhi MP said that while the governments in other states were busy strengthening their health system anticipating a second wave, Kejriwal govt was obsessed with self publicity and propaganda.
“Because of less testing, people would stand in long queues for their turn for about 7-8 hours. And they would return homes without testing. Waiting in queues led to the spread of Covid,” Gambhir said. Hans also said that less testing had greatly affected people in containment zones, where the situation became more challenging. “If AAP government had honestly worked, things would not have come to such a sorry state,” he said.
AAP hits back
The AAP hit back at Gambhir’s comments saying BJP had no moral authority to question it on Covid management after sending crores of vaccines of our children abroad purely to build their image globally. It dismissed the allegation as ‘frivolous’ saying Delhi has consistently been testing the highest nationally at 4,000 tests per million population— 4 times the national average.