Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday blamed people from outside the city for the long queues at state government hospitals, and urged other states to improve their facilities as well. Kejriwal made the remarks after inaugurating a trauma centre at the Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital in the city, Times Now reported.

“Nowadays medicines are available, earlier they were unavailable,” Kejriwal said, according to ANI. “I admit that there are long queues at government hospitals. There are some major reasons for this. One of the reasons is that a lot of people from outside Delhi are coming into the city for treatment.”

The chief minister said that a government survey at a Delhi hospital showed that 80% of the patients were from outside the national Capital. “If only people of Delhi have to be treated, there are enough hospitals for that,” he said. “It will not take more than half an hour to avail treatment. But the queues are so long because the kind of medical treatment available in Delhi now is not available in any other state.”

“A person from Bihar buys a Rs 500 ticket, comes to Delhi, gets a Rs 5 lakh surgery done for free, and goes back,” Kejriwal said. “This is cause for happiness, they are people of our country...but Delhi has a [limited] capacity, how can it treat patients from all over the country? So it is necessary that medical facilities in the whole country improve.”

BJP hits out at Kejriwal

Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party chief Manoj Tiwari lambasted Kejriwal for blaming the people of Bihar, PTI reported. He accused Kejriwal of humiliating the people of Bihar, adding that the chief minister has once again shown his hatred of outsiders.

“If Kejriwal has any personal and political enmity with me, he may say anything directly,” Tiwari told reporters. “Why humiliate people from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and other states by flaunting health services of his government?”

Tiwari had earlier this month demanded a National Register of Citizens exercise in Delhi, similar to the one conducted in Assam. In response, Kejriwal had said that Tiwari would be the first to leave the city if such an exercise were held, a reference to the BJP state chief’s Purvanchali roots. BJP Purvanchali Morcha workers subsequently held protests outside the chief minister’s home.

Assembly elections for all 70 seats in Delhi are scheduled for early next year. In the 2015 elections, Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party had won 67 seats.

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