The BJP mounted a scathing attack on Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday, accusing him of failing to check hazardous air pollution levels in Delhi and spending time in poll-bound Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.
BJP national vice-president and Delhi unit in-charge Baijayant Panda said Kejriwal was busy dealing with infighting in the AAP in Himachal Pradesh while people in Delhi were choking. "History will never forgive him," he said.
At a press conference, BJP national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawala alleged Kejriwal was working as a "part-time" chief minister of Delhi and should tell people what steps he had taken to protect them from pollution.
"When the AAP did not have a government in Punjab, Kejriwal used to talk about using bio-decomposer there to prevent paddy straw burning, but now when there is an AAP government in the state, he has failed to do so," he said. Poonwala said the high level of pollution in Delhi was a serious problem as it affected the lives of millions of people.
"This is the time to think seriously about Delhi, not politics. The issue of pollution is a matter related to the lives of the people, and hence, BJP wants a solution to it," he said. Addressing a joint press conference, Kejriwal and his Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann accepted the responsibility for paddy straw burning in the border state, saying it was wrong to blame farmers for it.
West Delhi BJP MP Parvesh Verma said it was Kejriwal who earlier used to raise the scare of farm fires in Punjab and now, he was trying to act innocent when his party is ruling in the state.
Verma said while people were suffering from unhealthy levels of air pollution, both the AAP chief ministers from Delhi and Punjab were busy campaigning in poll-bound Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra alleged that stubble burning in Punjab rose 34 per cent over 2021 while dipping 30 per cent in Haryana.
"We heard Kejriwal saying not to play politics over pollution as it is a sensitive issue and also concerns the health of children and others. But until last year, he was blaming the Punjab government for stubble burning and had assured that if his government came to power, people would not have to worry...," he said. Delhi BJP president Adesh Gupta charged Kejriwal of running away from his responsibilities as Delhi's chief minister.
Showing an old video of the chief minister at a press conference, Gupta said earlier, Kejriwal used to blame the Centre and the Congress government in Punjab for parali burning but now he has no answers why the national capital has turned into a gas chamber. "At a time when the air in Delhi has become harmful for people, Kejriwal and his party leaders are enjoying clean air in poll-bound Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh," Gupta claimed.
Delhi's 24-hour average Air Quality Index (AQI) stood at 447 at 4 pm Friday. An AQI of above 400 is considered "severe" and can affect healthy people and seriously impact those with existing illnesses.Almost all air quality monitoring stations reported "severe" air quality, including 13 that logged an AQI of more than 450.
The concentration of lung-damaging fine particles, known as PM2.5, was above 470 micrograms per cubic metre, around eight times above the safe limit of 60 micrograms per cubic metre, in many areas.
(With PTI inputs)
