Delhi BMW accident: AAP, BJP trade blame over emergency response, road safety

New Delhi, Sep 15 (PTI) The death of a senior Union Finance Ministry official in a road accident near Delhi Cantonment on Sunday has sparked a political row between the AAP and the BJP, with both parties blaming each other over emergency response and road safety in the city.

Deputy Secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs, Navjot Singh (52), died when his motorcycle was hit by a BMW while returning home from Bangla Sahib Gurdwara with his wife, who suffered serious injuries.

Senior AAP leader and Delhi unit chief Saurabh Bharadwaj, in a press conference on Monday, criticised the Central and Delhi governments for administrative apathy.

"Many people stopped to watch the accident, but only made videos. No one attempted to take the injured couple to a hospital. Eventually, a Muslim youth driving a pickup van helped transport them to a private hospital, but the officer passed away on arrival, while his wife remains seriously injured," he said.

Bharadwaj alleged that no government ambulance or police PCR reached the site promptly, and that the couple was taken to a hospital 22 km away instead of a nearby facility.

He also linked the tragedy to the scrapping of the Farishtey Scheme, under which the Delhi government had covered the cost of private hospital treatment for accident victims.

"The BJP government's decision to shut down Farishtey has left accident victims at risk, and countless lives could be lost because of it," he said.

However, Delhi BJP Spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor refuted the allegations.

"It is shocking to see Saurabh Bharadwaj accusing the government without checking facts. The BMW driver, not any passerby or police, transported the victims, and this has no relation to the Farishtey Scheme, which collapsed in 2023 due to non-payment of hospital bills by the Arvind Kejriwal government," Kapoor said.

The incident has reignited debate over Delhi’s road safety and emergency response systems. Police have registered a case of culpable homicide. The BMW, reportedly driven by a woman with her husband in the car, who were also injured, belongs to a Gurugram-based couple engaged in leather manufacturing.

AAP framed it as evidence of administrative negligence and political failure, while the BJP insisted that the matter should not be politicised and that the case is being handled per procedure. PTI MHS HIG