Tejasvi Surya Faces Heat as Police Find Nothing Against 17 Muslim Staff Fired in Bed Allocation Scam

New Delhi, 09 May 2021 [Fik/News Sources]: Investigation into the bed allocation scam at Bangalore Municipal Corporation has found no evidence against Muslim employees who have been fired after controversial BJP MP from Bangalore South, Tejasvi Surya, flagged their names.

A Police officer told PTI that the investigation is on but they are not relying on any social media video.

“We are not going by what’s being circulated in the social media. We are limiting our investigation to what is there before us, that is, we are investigating only the bed blocking scam,” the officer said.

Out of 205 staff, 17 Muslims working at Covid War Room of BBMP were targeted by BJP leaders including Surya and BJP MLAs Satish Reddy and Ravi Subramanya on May 4 after a bed allocation scam uncovered at BBMP or Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike.

A video of heckling of the officials by Surya and his supporters had surfaced on social media in which he can be seen reprimanding a lady official for appointing Muslims. Surya read out the names of Muslim staff and asked the lady official why these people have been appointed at the Covid war room. He and his associates even went on to make communal remarks asking whether BBMP is a “madarsa” or “Haj House”.

According to police, Nethravathi, Rohith, Venkat Subba Rao, Manjunath and Punith were arrested in the bed blocking scam.

However, the scam took new turn after a Kannada newspaper Vijay Karantaka revealed that Satish Reddy, one of the BJP MLAs who barged into Covid war room and reprimanded the officials for appointing Muslims at the war room, has been accused of booking beds for his supporters by putting his agents. He was also accused of issuing threats to the officials in the war room to give priorities to his supporters over others.

Congress youth leader Srivastva also shared a video alleging that Reddy was heckling an IAS officer at the same war room.

“Few days before @Tejasvi_Surya ‘raided’ the BBMP War-room, Satish Reddy (BJP MLA who was with Tejasvi during the raid) & his supporters had manhandled IAS officer Yashwant at the same war-room! IAS Yashwantha had caught MLA’s agents red-handed in Bed allocation Scam!,” tweeted Srivastva along with a video.

Reddy, who is MLA from Karnataka’s Bommanahalli constituency, reportedly went to the war room on April 30 along with his supporters and demanded bed allocation for people of his constituency. When his demand was not met, they manhandled IAS officer Y. Yashavantha, who was in-charge of the war room.

After the video of manhandling Yashavantha surfaced, the IAS Officers’ Association wrote to Chief Minister Y.S. Yeddiyurappa demanding action against the culprits for manhandling an IAS officer.

“Mr. Yashavantha was part of the team of officers who had obtained additional hospital beds from private hospitals. But the officer did not yield to pressure to offer the additional beds to representatives of honourable members of the legislative Assembly. As a result, Mr. Yeshavantha was manhandled and abused in public…”, the letter said.

On the other hand, Surya was also widely condemned for his communal slurs. State Convener of Aam Aadmi Karnataka Prithavi Reddy filed a complaint against Surya and his accomplices. Citing the news report, the complaint accused Reddy’s hand behind the bed allocation scam.

“In the past couple of days it has come to light that there has been a huge scam in the booking of Hospital beds and ICUs in Bangalore city. ICU Beds are constantly not available to the common man and this may be due to nexus between BBMP Officials, Politicians and middlemen organising this booking of beds,” the complaint read.

There were reports that Surya apologized to the war room staff for his behaviour. But he himself has termed those reports “fake news”.