A BJP lawmaker related to high-profile MP Tejasvi Surya has been accused of taking a “commission” for vaccines supplied to a private hospital in Bangalore after a social worker circulated an audio clip of a purported phone conversation between him and a hospital employee.
In an audio clip that is being circulated, an unidentified woman who appears to be a hospital employee tells a male caller — identified as social worker Venkatesh by Kannada TV channels — that the facility has to pay Rs 700 for each vaccine dose to Ravi Subramanya and therefore charges Rs 900 for each jab.
Subramanya, the Basavanagudi MLA and uncle of Bangalore South MP Surya, has denied the allegation.
Venkatesh could not be contacted.
The conversation in the clip does not identify the hospital or the vaccine, nor does it say from where the MLA may have sourced the vaccine he allegedly sold the hospital —from the state government, Centre or any other public or private agency.
Currently, the Centre has been providing doses free to the states for inoculating those aged 45 or above at government facilities. For younger adults, the states need to buy directly from the vaccine makers — Covishield at Rs 300 and Covaxin at Rs 400 per dose. For private hospitals, the prices are Rs 600 for Covishield and Rs 1,200 for Covaxin.
Private hospitals in Bangalore are charging Rs 850 to Rs 1,100 per Covishield dose and Rs 1,250 per Covaxin jab.
In the audio clip, the male caller asks the woman to schedule a jab for his 28-year-old son. The entire conversation is in Kannada.The woman says the caller has to book an appointment on the Co-WIN app. When the man replies he is not tech savvy enough, the woman asks him to get his son to make the booking.
The man asks what the vaccination charge is and is told it’s Rs 900. He reminds the woman that government clinics are offering free jabs.
She responds: “You can get it from there (government clinics).... It is Ravi Subramanya who has given (the vaccines to us), and the charge is Rs 900.”
The man asks whether the hospital indeed received the vaccines from Subramanya, and the woman says: “Yes, but we have to pay him cash…. Yes, he takes Rs 700 and we take Rs 200.”
The man asks: “So you should pay Ravi Subramanya Rs 700?” The woman replies: “Yes, yes.”
While denying the allegation, Subramanya has in a tweet identified the hospital as AV Multi-speciality Hospital in Hosakerahalli, south Bangalore. He said he had visited the hospital after the controversy broke, implying he had complained to its management.
“Certain miscreants have used my name in an allegation about Covid vaccine charges through an audio recording,” the tweet says.
“The couple who have colluded should be chastened so that public is not misguided with false allegations.”
State Congress president D.K. Shivakumar has tweeted that an FIR should be registered against Subramanya “for taking commission for vaccines” and that the “HC must monitor the probe” and the MLA “should be disqualified by the Speaker”.
Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala tweeted: “People are dying of shortage of #vaccine and BJP leaders are making money (out) of their misery. Can there be a bigger crime, Mr Modi?”
Earlier this month, Subramanya and Surya had barged into a Covid war room run by the Bangalore corporation and pulled up officials for hiring 16 Muslims to help run the facility. With the two lawmakers were party MLAs Satish Reddy and Uday Garudachar.
Subramanya had asked the civic officials: “Did you make the appointments for a madrasa or a corporation?”
The BJP lawmakers had alleged that the war room staff were involved in a cash-for-bed scam in which free Covid beds were being blocked illegally so they could be sold to patients willing to pay.
But none of the 16 Muslims were among the 11 people the police later arrested in the case.
Ironically, MLA Reddy’s aide Babu was arrested on Wednesday in connection with the scam that Surya, his uncle and Reddy had tried to communalise.
