Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday jointly inspected preparations at a 10,000-bed COVID Care Centre (CCC) being created on the Radha Soami Satsang Beas campus in Chhatarpur here.
The Sardar Patel CCC, which is likely to be among the largest facilities of its kind in the world at full capacity, will be 1,700 feet long, 700 feet wide and have 200 enclosures with 50 beds each. On Tuesday, Mr. Kejriwal had written to Mr. Shah, inviting him to inspect the facility; he had also requested the deployment of doctors and nurses from the Indo-Tibetan Border Police and the Army at the centre.
Mr. Shah responded that the ITBP had already been assigned to the task.
On Saturday afternoon, AAP’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh accused Mr. Shah of seeking to “secretly inaugurate” the facility.
Barbs exchanged
BJP MP from East Delhi Gautam Gambhir later replied to Mr. Singh’s comment saying the visit was scheduled as an “inspection and not an inauguration”.
“Heard Home Minister Amit Shah is stealthily coming to inaugurate the largest COVID Care Centre in the world created by the Delhi government, is the BJP fighting COVID or Arvind Kejriwal?” Mr. Singh tweeted.
“Sanjay Ji, personally spoke to Home Minister Amit Shah ji on the topic after your tweet. He told me the visit is intended as an inspection instead of an inauguration for which Arvind Kejriwal Ji has also been called. Do you not talk to Kejriwal Ji or were you intending to visit alone and take all the credit?” Mr. Gambhir responded.
After the visit, which lasted a little over 12 minutes during which both Mr. Shah and Mr. Kejriwal kept in step with each other, they tweeted about the facility.
“In this hour of difficulty, I sought help to save Delhi and everyone has come forward to contribute enthusiastically. With the support of the Central government and Radha Soami Satsang Beas, such a large Covid centre has come up for Delhiites,” Mr. Kejriwal posted.
Mr. Shah thanked the RSSB and “all others” who helped create the “huge COVID care facility”. In a subsequent tweet, he expressed gratitude to the ITBP and the Centre. “I applaud our courageous ITBP personnel, who would be operating this Covid Care facility during these trying times. Their commitment to serve nation and people of Delhi is unparalleled. Modi govt at the centre is committed to provide all possible help to its citizens (sic),” he wrote.
