‘BJP showing false report’: Sisodia dismisses allegations of Delhi’s inflated oxygen need

Deputy CM Manish Sisodia said AAP govt spoke to members of SC-appointed committee who said they didn't sign or approve any report about Delhi's oxygen need during second Covid wave.

File photo of former Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia | PTI

New Delhi: Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Friday denied existence of any report by the Supreme Court-appointed Oxygen Audit Committee about Delhi exaggerating its oxygen requirement by four times during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

At an online press briefing, he accused the BJP of lying about such a report.

“There is no such report. We have spoken to the members of the Oxygen Audit Committee formed by the Supreme Court. They said they have not signed or approved any such report.

“The BJP is presenting a false report that it prepared at its party headquarters. I challenge them to present such a report which has signatures of the members of the oxygen audit committee,” Sisodia said.

By doing this, the BJP is not abusing Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, but “those who lost their family members due to oxygen shortage when coronavirus cases were at its peak, he said and accused the Union government of mismanagement “which led to the oxygen crisis”.

Delhi was hit severely by a brutal second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in April and May, claiming a massive number of lives daily, with a shortage in oxygen supply at various city hospitals adding to the woes.

BJP accuses Kejriwal of ‘criminal negligence’

Earlier in the day, the BJP said the Delhi government “inflated” its oxygen requirement during the second wave of Covid and accused Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of “heinous crime” and “criminal negligence”.

Addressing a press conference, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra cited the report to note that the Delhi government had demanded 1,140 MT of the life-saving gas during the peak of the second wave even though it could utilise 209 MT.

The requirement was 351 MT even if the panel went by the Delhi government’s formula while it was 289 MT according to the central government’s estimate, he said, adding that only 209 MT was expended while Kejriwal projected an requirement of 1,140 MT.

“Imagine the amount of criminality. This is a heinous crime by Arvind Kejriwal. This is criminal negligence as the panel says he sought four times more oxygen than required. The report has exposed the politics he did to shift blame from his incompetence and failure to deal with COVID-19,” Patra claimed.