New Delhi, May 25 (IANS): The Delhi BJP on Monday slammed the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in the national capital, saying that in the absence of price capping by the AAP government, patients are robbed in the name of treatment.

The BJP also put five demands in front of the city government.

Addressing a press conference here, Delhi BJP chief Adesh Gupta said, "The common people in Delhi are being cheated and looted for the past 15 months due to the mismanagement and negligence of the Arvind Kejriwal-led government, which has been patronising these people overtly and covertly."

He said that even as the whole of Delhi is searching for precious oxygen, ventilators, medicines, ambulances, etc., the AAP government is only busy politicking without caring for the pain and agony of the common man.

Gupta said, "As the Chief Minister and a servant of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal should be ashamed that while people are losing their lives, he is busy doing petty politics and shining his own face."

"This led to Delhi seeing what it had not witnessed before, all because of Kejriwal's petty politics and greed," he alleged.

Besides Gupta, Leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly Ramvir Singh Bidhuri and west Delhi MP Parvesh Verma also addressed the media persons.

Gupta said when the matter pertaining to private hospitals fleecing people in the name of treatment came to the fore at the intervention of the Centre, the AAP government issued a circular fixing rate for beds in the hospitals.

"The circular clearly said that ordinary an isolation bed should be charged at Rs 8,000-10,000 a day, ICU bed without ventilator at Rs 13,000-15,000 daily, and with ventilator Rs 15,000-18,000 per day. But people were forced to pay Rs 1 lakh to Rs 1.5 lakh a day for ICU beds," he claimed, adding that if only the Kejriwal administration had followed its own guidelines, people would not have ended up paying through their nose.

He also slammed the AAP government for not implementing the Centre's Ayushman Bharat scheme in Delhi.

"If this would have been implemented here, many poor people would have got financial help from it and many precious lives could have been saved," Gupta said.

Firing salvos at the Kejriwal government, the BJP leader said, "Why no price capping was done and orders were issued to that effect?"

"There is a nexus between Kejriwal and private hospital owners," he said, adding that this can be gauged by the fact that despite common people paying hefty bills of Rs 10-15 lakh in the name of Covid treatment to these hospitals, no action has been taken against them.

He also alleged that it's clear that a large part of this money must have been given to Kejriwal's ministers and officials.

Gupta also demanded an audit to be done on the issue of price capping.

Meanwhile, Bidhuri said that the people of Delhi are facing a two-pronged difficulty, Covid on the one hand, and the black marketing being done in the name of treatment on the other.

"Even the nodal officers appointed by the Chief Minister to help people have been of no use and are only helping to further the cause of Kejriwal himself," he alleged.

He also said that Kejriwal has taken no action against the officials indulging in corrupt practices in the name of providing treatment, which shows the Chief Minister is hand in glove with the hospital's owners.

Bidhuri also said that instead of improving the oxygen supply position, Kejriwal's focus is on its black marketing, which the people of Delhi have seen.