Bihar: Prashant Kishor accused BJP state president Dilip Jaiswal and Health Minister Mangal Pandey of grave corruption. 

Prashant Kishore


Patna: Prashant Kishore, the founder of the Jan Suraj Party, has leveled grave accusations against Dilip Jaiswal, the state president of the BJP, and Mangal Pandey, the health minister. He accused Bihar Health Minister Mangal Pandey of accepting a Rs 25 lakh bribe from BJP state president Dilip Jaiswal in 2019 during a news conference in Patna on Friday.                                                                Pandey employed this money to purchase a flat in Dwarka, Delhi, in the name of his wife. In exchange, Jaiswal's medical college in Kishanganj was granted the status of deemed university. Prashant Kishore states that in 2020, when people were concerned by the pandemic, Mangal Pandey purchased a flat in Delhi's Dwarka region for Rs 86 lakh. Dilip Jaiswal assisted with the purchase.

According to PK, Pandey's father, Awadhesh Pandey, deposited Rs 30 lakh into Pandey's wife Urmila's account in order to complete this transaction. The apartment was purchased with this money. He claimed that in the 2020 affidavit, Pandey made no reference to any loan associated with this acquisition. He said that the health minister received funding from Jaiswal, the owner of a medical college, doctors and medical suppliers. He claims that Jaiswal's medical college received the designation of "deemed university" following this transaction.


In addition, Prashant Kishore claimed that there were anomalies in the way ambulances were purchased in Bihar. He explained that the Bihar Health Department put out a tender in February 2022 to purchase 1,250 ambulances, at an approximate cost of Rs 200 crore. Instead, only 466 Type-C ambulances—and at a higher cost—were bought.
One ambulance, according to PK, cost Rs 19.58 lakh, but on April 22 of this year, it was bought for Rs 28.47 lakh. For technical reasons, Tata Motors was not allowed to participate in the tender. He questioned why the Bihar government had to pay Rs 28 lakh when Force Motors ambulances cost Rs 19 lakh in other states. He insisted that the entire situation be looked into.

According to Prashant Kishore, members of the BJP are also accepting bribes from their leaders. He said that till 2019, Dilip Jaiswal's MGM Medical College in Kishanganj was not authorized to award degrees. Madhepura University degrees were awarded up till that point. It appears that Jaiswal's medical college, which has now begun awarding degrees on its own, was designated as a deemed university in 2019 after receiving this sum of money (25 lakhs).