NCP (SP) leader Patil accuses BJP MLA of involvement in coronavirus-era 'scam'

Mumbai: Nationalist Congress Party (SP) MLA Jayant Patil on Tuesday alleged in the Maharashtra assembly that a BJP legislator was involved in a case where dead persons were shown as alive to claim benefits under a government health scheme during the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking on budgetary demands of the health department, Patil said during the pandemic, a hospital in western Maharashtra's Satara district showed dead persons as alive to claim benefits given to patients under a health scheme and then alleged that BJP legislator Jaykumar Gore was involved in this "scam".

The main accused in the case is an MLA of the ruling BJP "who is considered close to those holding important posts in power", said the opposition legislator.

Gore, an MLA from Satara district, immediately got up from his seat and demanded that a committee under Patil, a former state minister, be instituted to probe the allegation.

Patil said the Satara hospital in question is run by an education society based in Kolhapur.

During the pandemic in 2020, several persons connected to the hospital had shown dead people as alive to claim benefits of the Mahatma Jyotirao Phule Health scheme, said the NCP (SP) MLA.

He also alleged that while empanelling the hospital to the state government-sponsored health scheme, outside doctors were shown on the roll of the medical facility.

Patil said 200 to 250 patients died in the hospital during the pandemic, but they were shown as alive in records of the facility for at least three months to prove they were being treated under the health scheme.

He said the then-Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, in which the undivided NCP was a partner, had taken action in the case, but after it lost office in June 2022, nothing happened in the matter.

Patil was the water resources minister in the MVA government.