NEW DELHI | Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Delhi State President Saurabh Bharadwaj has drawn a sharp parallel with an iPhone tender to question the Delhi Lieutenant Governor (LG) over the ‘bicycle scam’. He asked the LG to consider a simple scenario: if the government tendered for an iPhone 17 Pro Max but the contractor supplied an iPhone 14 at the same price, what action would the government take?
The AAP Delhi Chief said the same situation is unfolding in the purchase of bicycles being distributed to schoolgirls by the Education Department under Minister Ashish Sood. He revealed that the government tendered for the more expensive Hero Skyler model, but the contractor is supplying the cheaper Bonfire model at the same price. He questioned how the government could accept a product different from the one specified in the tender and then claim that there was nothing it could do because the tender had already been awarded.
AAP Delhi Unit President Saurabh Bharadwaj told the Delhi LG, “Suppose the government has to purchase 1 lakh Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max phones. The government would not buy them from a showroom because that would mean paying the retail price. It would float a tender so that it could get a lower price by purchasing in bulk. Apple would also participate in the tender because it manufactures the iPhone itself. Apple would say that while we normally sell this iPhone for ₹1,40,000, if the government purchases one lakh iPhones, we will supply each one for ₹1,25,000.”
Explaining how the tender could be manipulated, he continued, “Samsung then participates in the tender and says that while we do not manufacture the iPhone 17, we have a similar model that we can supply for ₹1,15,000. Then a small dealer comes along and says that we neither manufacture nor sell phones, but we will supply the government the iPhone 17 Pro Max for ₹1,00,000, making it even cheaper than Apple. The government accepts this and says that whoever offers the lowest price in the tender will get the contract.”
The AAP Delhi Chief pointed to what happens when the product is actually delivered: “So far, everything seems fine. But when it is time to deliver the iPhone 17, the dealer cannot actually provide it. Instead, he supplies an iPhone 14, which is available in the market for only ₹50,000. He buys an iPhone 14 from the market for ₹50,000 and sells it to the government for ₹1,00,000 in the name of an iPhone 17. The government then says, ‘We awarded the tender, and this is what is being supplied under the tender, so what can we do?’ That is not how it works.”
Drawing a parallel with the cycle tender, Saurabh Bharadwaj asserted, “Now you can understand how the government is fooling people in the cycle scam. Again and again, the government says that we floated the tender on the GeM (Government e-Marketplace) portal and received the lowest bid. But the government is not looking at the fact that the cycle for which the tender was issued and the cycle actually being supplied are two different models. The tender was for the more expensive Skyler model, while the model being supplied to the government is the Bonfire. Therefore, the government should stop fooling the people.”
