Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Delhi chief Saurabh Bhardwaj on Sunday shared visuals of froth-laden Yamuna near the Okhla barrage and alleged that all tasks by the “BJP’s four-engine government were being completed in photos and videos, and not in reality”.
“The chemical that the previous Delhi government sprayed in Yamuna, is being sprayed by the current government. If Rekha Gupta says that the water in Yamuna is clean, then I ask her and Parvesh Verma to come with me and drink a litre of Yamuna water. I will be convinced that the Yamuna is now clean,” he said.
Slamming the allegations, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor said the AAP has deceived the city for ten years in the name of Yamuna cleaning. Kapoor further said the BJP-led Delhi government will clean the Yamuna by 2026-end.
“Saurabh Babu, you are educated, but tell me, who drinks water from the river in a glass? You people were in power for more than 10 years, made big claims about cleaning the Yamuna, but did nothing, and the consequences are still before Delhi. The Aam Aadmi Party cheated for ten years in the name of cleaning the Yamuna. More than 6,500 crore rupees were misappropriated, but the Yamuna turned from a dirty river into a drain,” Kappor posted on X.
Further, he said that last year, Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva had invited AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal to visit the Yamuna, but he did not come. “Sachdeva took a dip and suffered the brunt of pollution…stop making these statements and tell us what your government did in the last ten years, apart from distributing ₹6,500 crore in the name of cleaning Yamuna…Rest assured, by the end of 2026, the Rekha Gupta government will make the Yamuna clean enough for anyone to take a dip.”
Meanwhile, Delhi chief minister Rekha Gupta on Sunday inspected the Vasudev Ghat to review arrangements ahead of Chhath Puja, which will be observed from October 25 to 28 this year. “We have reviewed almost every area of the Yamuna river bank, and the work continues. Each agency is working, and as you can see, there is no foam. We are committed to working for the people; the previous government only talked, but did no work,” Gupta said.
With images of devotees standing in froth-laden water going viral every year during Chhath Puja, the phenomenon has become an annual controversy point. Froth bubbles are caused due to soap-like surfactant molecules and when water falls from a height in the Okhla barrage, it leads to churning of polluted water, as well as increased frothing. There are biological and chemical causes behind the presence of surfactant molecules in the highly polluted river water.
With an estimated over four million constituents in Delhi, Poorvanchalis have emerged as a major cultural and political community in the city during the last decade. and the observance of Chhath festival — six days after Diwali — in public places has also grown proportionally. The festival, over the last few years, has also been a point of politics and controversy between the AAP and the BJP with each wooing the substantial vote bank.