Want SIT probe into irregularities in Covid centre contracts: BJP leader Kirit Somaiya

Kirit Somaiya. File Pic

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Kirit Somaiya on Wednesday demanded a special investigation team (SIT) to probe into alleged irregularities in the award of contracts for Covid centres by the city civic body during the pandemic.

Addressing a press conference at his home here, Somaiya claimed a scam of Rs 100 crore related to Lifeline Hospital Management Services. The firm's co-partner Sujeet Patkar is a close aide of Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut, he said.

The Mumbai Police had in August 2022 registered an FIR against the hospital management company and four persons, including Patkar, for allegedly submitting fake documents to obtain contracts for Covid-19 care centres in 2020.

Somaiya said the police on Tuesday arrested two persons in connection with the case and one of them is a tea vendor outside the civic-run KEM hospital in Parel.

To this company, which didn't exist then (in 2020), how did the Mumbai municipal corporation give Rs 100 crore Covid centre contract to it? Whose pressure was it? Was it of Bandra or Bhandup? said Somaiya, demanding an SIT probe.

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While Uddhav Thackeray, then chief minister, is a Bandra resident, Raut lives in Bhandup.

Somaiya, a former MP, alleged that Shiv Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray had given the Worli and Dahisar jumbo centre ICU management contracts to the company despite it being blacklisted by the Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority.

Somaiya said Lifeline had only 18 persons as against the immediate requirement of 6,000 persons as per the Covid centre contracts. Then how the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) gave the contracts to it, he asked.

The BJP leader claimed that the company has received profits of Rs 32 crore so far and its four co-partners have distributed Rs 20 crore among themselves. The tea vendor is a co-partner and a profit of 4.11 crore has been officially credited to his account, he said.

Somaiya also urged Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to provide police protection to the person who had given a bogus bill of Rs 3.25 crore to Patkar.

He also demanded registration of an attempt to murder case against the partners of the company saying three persons, including a journalist, died while being treated.

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