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Arvind Kejriwal takes fake moral high ground on Yamuna issue, promises to ‘clean the river’ despite not being benefitted electorally

In 2015, AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal had promised to clean and revive the water body within a span of 5 years i.e. by the year 2020.

Ahead of the 2025 Vidhan Sabha elections in Delhi, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo Arvind Kejriwal has attempted to take a ‘moral high ground’ on the issue of Yamuna river pollution.

In a recent podcast interview, Kejriwal said, “I have started understanding politics a bit. I will not get votes on the issue of Yamuna.”

With an air of moral superiority, the AAP supremo claimed, “Even then, I will get the Yamuna river cleaned. I did not come to the scene for electoral politics. Others are doing it anyway.”

He further alleged, “They were already politics with money and making money from politics. I did not enter politics to do that.” Arvind Kejriwal claimed that he did not build schools and hospitals to get votes.

“Yamuna can be cleaned and it will be cleaned,” he promised during the podcast interview.

While the AAP supremo seems to have turned the Yamuna issue into a moral obligation, the truth is that his latest posturing is a diversionary tactic to avoid accountability.

Arvind Kejriwal and his decade-long promises to clean the Yamuna river

Yamuna river and the associated water pollution become a focal point in the politics of the National Capital during festive seasons. Devotees are seen taking a holy dip amid carcinogenic foam.

This triggers debates in public discourse about the progress of the Yamuna cleaning campaign, which was advocated by none other than Arvind Kejriwal as early as 2015.

At that time, the AAP supremo had promised to clean and revive the water body within a span of 5 years i.e. by the year 2020. “We will revive Yamuna within five years,” he had claimed then.

In November 2019, he said his government has planned to clean the Yamuna in the next four to five years, and people would be able to take a dip in it.

In December same year, he promised the people attending his rally that by the next elections (scheduled in 2025), he would take the whole village for a dip in the Yamuna.

In January 2020, just before the assembly elections, Arvind Kejriwal had claimed, “The Yamuna will be cleaned and made pollution-free. We promise that after five years, anyone will be able to take a dip in the Yamuna without fear of diseases due to dirty water.”

In the budget presented by Delhi Government for the financial year 2023-24, around 1,028 crores have been earmarked for cleaning River Yamuna. CM Kejriwal again promised that he would take a dip in the river in the next assembly elections, a promise that he made before but never fulfilled.

In April last year, it came to light that the Delhi Government led by Arvind Kejriwal spent around ₹6,856.91 crores in 5 years between 2017-2021. 

Interestingly, data obtained from the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) suggests that the pollution in the Yamuna river has doubled between 2015 and 2023.

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OpIndia Staffhttps://www.opindia.com
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