Delhi Air Pollution: High time to stop blame game & initiate measures to protect people, says BJP

Amid the blame game between the ruling AAP and the opposition BJP on the pollution crisis, BJP MP Manoj Tiwari in a letter to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said it was high time to stop the blame game and initiate measures to protect people. Tiwari alleged that the “callous and frivolous attitude” of the Kejriwal government was responsible for the annual affair of toxic air quality in the city during winter. The air quality in several areas of Delhi was recorded in the ‘severe’ category on Saturday as a thick toxic haze lingered over the city for the fifth consecutive day. The air quality index (AQI) at many places in the National Capital Region (NCR) crossed the 450 mark. While, the AAP blamed the BJP-governed Haryana for the crisis faced by people in the national capital. Targeting the Manohar Lal Khattar government in Haryana, AAP chief spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar said “it has done nothing for stubble management. If the Khattar government wishes, we can send our experts from Punjab who can guide them on where machines are needed for stubble disposal.” Delhi BJP secretary Harish Khurana trained guns at Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal saying he was busy with “political tourism” in Chhattisgarh at a time when people needed him in Delhi. Khurana claimed that official data shows the incidents of stubble burning in Punjab were far more as compared to Haryana. “There were 1,921 incidents of ‘parali’ (stubble) burning in Punjab on November 1 while Haryana registered 1,296 farm fires in entire October,” he claimed. He said Kejriwal who was touring with Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann in poll-bound states should ask him to contain farm fires in his state because people in Delhi are choking. The national capital recorded an AQI of 433 at 7 pm, according to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB). The AQI at Anand Vihar was 488. It was 487 at Shadipur, 474 at Wazirpur, 465 at Punjabi Bag, 454 at Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range, 463 at Bawana, 448 at Okhla and 459 at Rohini, the CPCB data showed. In Delhi-NCR, the AQI in Greater Noida stood at 498 at 7 pm. It was 408 at Ghaziabad, 441 at Faridabad and 423 at Gurugram, the CPCB said. With inputs from PTI