New Delhi, July 5 -- The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Saturday alleged that the purported Rs 650-crore health scam in Delhi was not a systemic failure but a deliberate act by the BJP government, accusing the Rekha Gupta-led administration of attempting to shift the blame after the matter came to light.
Delhi AAP chief Saurabh Bharadwaj outlined what he described as the chronology of the case, claiming that then Director General of Health Services (DGHS) Dr Vandana Bagga had flagged major irregularities in a 2025 tender for outsourced laboratory testing services across government hospitals, dispensaries and clinics. According to Bharadwaj, Dr Bagga recorded on the file that the tender had been tailored to favour a particular vendor and alleged that she was pressured by then Health Secretary Dr S.B. Deepak Kumar and Special Secretary Danish to approve it.
Bharadwaj alleged that Dr Bagga refused to clear the tender and was subsequently suspended by Lieutenant Governor Vinai Saxena. He claimed that her successor, Dr Rati Makkar, also faced pressure to approve the tender but declined and opted for voluntary retirement. According to him, Dr Vatsala Aggarwal was later appointed DGHS by Chief Minister Rekha Gupta and the Lieutenant Governor, following which the alleged Rs 650-crore scam surfaced. He further claimed that Dr Bagga challenged her suspension in the Supreme Court, won the case and was reinstated in the Health Department.
In a separate post on X, Bharadwaj alleged that the Rekha Gupta government filed a false affidavit before the High Court regarding the Next Gen Hospital ICU App. He claimed that a Division Bench found the emergency numbers publicised by the government to be non-functional after attempting to call them. He further alleged that when the same case was heard during the AAP government's tenure, it had received prominent media coverage.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.