Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena on Thursday launched a scathing attack on the AAP Convenor and former Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal over his remarks against the Ayushman Bharat scheme and called Delhi’s health model ‘a web of illusion created by your powerful propaganda machinery’.

In a tweet, Saxena said, “Dear Former Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, I do not take cognizance of your baseless statements, but this post is about a very people-oriented scheme of the Government of India - Ayushman Bharat, 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.”

He alleged that the AAP chief opposed the scheme to be associated with it in some way or the other. “While the Delhi government recommended implementing this scheme in public interest in view of its benefits and the then Health Minister had given permission to implement the scheme, in August 2018, AAP government talked about naming the Ayushman Bharat scheme as ‘Chief Minister Aam Aadmi Health Insurance Scheme Ayushman Bharat’,” the LG stated.

“The Government of India, which bears most of the cost of this scheme, has also agreed to your self-glorification by simply asking you to use your name after “Ayushman Bharat”,” he said, adding in the Budget Speech for 2020-21, the then Deputy Chief Minister / Finance Minister also announced that your Government will implement “Ayushman Bharat Jan Arogya Yojana”

“Despite this, your narcissism and hunger for publicity has not allowed the Delhi government to implement this scheme till now,” he said.

Further, he attacked the AAP government’s health department and said, “I would now like to draw your attention to your so-called health model, which is nothing but a web of illusion created by your powerful propaganda machinery. You have been suppressing the CAG reports of the Health Department for years.”

Saxenaa claimed that despite him trying to draw Kejriwal’s attention to the poor healthcare system in Delhi, he did not even take cognizance of it. “You will easily know how much benefit the people of other states are getting from the Ayushman Bharat Yojana if you take the trouble of visiting hospitals like AIIMS, Safdarjung, RML, Sir Gangaram located in Delhi,” he said.

“As far as your suggestion to implement the "Delhi Health Model" at the national level is concerned, it will lead to nothing but chaos, corruption and a terrible condition of the patients. I hope that you will leave politics, 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, now you probably will not feel the need to name the Ayushman Bharat scheme after the Chief Minister,” he said.