Union minister of state for road transport and highways Vijay Kumar Singh on Saturday courted controversy with his tweet seeking help for a COVID-19 patient who was unable to find a hospital bed in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad. His tweet generated a lot of buzz on the micro-blogging site, prompting him to issue a clarification.
Twitter users such as Tehseen Poonawalla have posted the screenshot of a tweet by the Union minister seeking a hospital bed for a Covid-infected person.
Singh’s tweet tags the Ghaziabad district magistrate and says “Please check this out”. The subsequent text in Hindi translates to, “Please help us. My Covid-infected brother needs a hospital bed. But we can’t find a bed in Ghaziabad.”
The tweet was viewed as a sign of poor medical infrastructure in the country where even the minister’s relatives were struggling for beds. On the other hand, some perceived that VK Singh was using his position to get help for his relative in need of bed. This was backed by senior state government officials promptly replying to his post. Poonawalla, uploading the screenshot of Singh’s tweet, wrote, “The crisis is terrible, imagine the MP of Ghaziabad and former army chief are trying to find beds via Twitter. I hope @gen_VKSingh ji finds a bed for his brother asap”
Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that Singh had not tweeted for his own brother. VK Singh, who is also an MP from Ghaziabad, later deleted the tweet and clarified that he is not related to the person and his tweet was for the district administration to reach out to the patient.The MP clarified on Twitter that he had tagged the Ghaziabad DM for another person who was looking for a hospital bed for his brother.
“I tweeted this request so that the district administration can reach the person in need and provide him with medical care that his brother requires. He is not my brother by relation, but by the bond of humanity. I think it’s an alien concept to some,” the Union minister’s tweet read. He, however, deleted it minutes after posting it.
Later, VK Singh posted another tweet slamming trollers and also informed that the bed requirement issue for the patient has been sorted out by the local administration and chief minister’s office.
