AAP, BJP, Congress trade charges over increasing pollution

AAP says ‘perennial problem’; BJP accuses it of passing buck; Congress blames Centre, Delhi government

Vehicles moving on NH24 as Delhi is covered in a thick layer of smog on Friday. | Photo Credit: Shashi Shekhar Kashyap

The deteriorating air quality kick-started a blame game between the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and its opponents in Delhi.

While Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai said the Capital cannot do much alone as pollution has been a perennial problem during winters across north India, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said the AAP government was passing the buck to BJP-ruled neighbouring States.

Speaking to reporters, Mr. Rai urged his counterparts in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh to take necessary steps to check pollution in their respective States.

Responding to queries about the dysfunctional smog tower in Connaught Place, which was set up two years ago on the directions of the Supreme Court, Mr. Rai blamed Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) chairperson Ashwani Kumar for arbitrarily shutting it down.

Claiming that Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had sought a year’s time “exactly on this day in 2022 to curb pollution in the national capital”, BJP national spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia dared the CM to hold a press conference and update the people of Delhi on the steps taken by his government to tackle the situation.

Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva said that measures such as banning construction activities and shutting down schools are not the solution.

AAP national spokesperson Reena Gupta hit back and said, “The [AAP] governments of Delhi and Punjab are taking continuous measures to curb air pollution, but the Central government lacks any action plan to control it.”

Delhi Congress president Arvinder Singh Lovely, meanwhile, said the Delhi and the Central governments have “not done enough” to curb pollution and urged the administration to come up with a permanent solution for it. He said that it was a matter of shame for both the Centre and the State government that over 14,000 people had died due to respiratory illness in the past one year.

His senior party colleague and Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh called for “a revisit and a total revamp” of the Air Pollution (Control and Prevention) Act and the National Ambient Air Quality Standards.

The former Union Environment Minister said air pollution, which chokes the national capital usually in November, “is a daily agony across the country all round the year”.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), and the former Environment Minister said, “The National Clean Air Programme is chugging along without having any marked impacts. Air pollution hits the headlines mostly in November when the nation’s capital chokes. But it is a daily agony across the country all round the year.”