New Delhi, Oct 21 (IANS) Blaming the ruling AAP for farm fires in Punjab, Delhi Forest and Environment Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa said on Tuesday that the air quality index (AQI) rose by 11 points in the Capital after Diwali day and accused the party of vilifying the Hindu festival to appease its vote bank.

He also dismissed the AAP’s demand for carrying out artificial rain in the city, explaining that it remains an option, but it can be exercised only after favourable cloud conditions.

Addressing media persons, Sirsa trained his guns on the previous Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and its former Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for vilifying Diwali and Hindu traditions for causing poor AQI around the festival.

“Before Diwali, the AQI was 335 and after Diwali it was 356,” he said, adding that there is not much difference due to this year’s Diwali celebrations, which included a Supreme Court-approved permission to burst green crackers.

“In fact, one set of old data shows that the AQI after Diwali deteriorated by 32 points when there was no permission to burst crackers on the day of the festival,” he said.

The Environment Minister also sought to delink the current AQI spurt around Diwali from the tradition of bursting crackers on the Festival of Lights.

“Data shows that the permission to use green crackers this year has led to an increase of 11 points in the AQI from the Diwali day to the festival’s next day,” he said.

Sirsa accused Kejriwal of hurting Hindu sentiments by blaming Diwali and related festivities for toxic air in the city while allowing polluting practices of other communities that are the AAP’s vote banks.

“The AAP leaders are bringing Sanatan Dharma into the air pollution debate. They are blaming this celebration related to Lord Ram, without realising that Diwali is a festival of Sanatan Dharma and not of the BJP,” he said, adding that the AAP leaders were maligning Sanatan Dharma for appeasement politics.

“Arvind Kejriwal's entire team has been constantly cursing Diwali... Sanjay Singh and his colleagues have been tweeting since last night, asking people to stop celebrating Diwali,” he said.

Sirsa alleged that the AAP government in Punjab was part of a larger conspiracy to spoil air quality in Delhi around Diwali.

“Punjab farmers are being forced to cover their faces to hide identity and burn paddy residue in farms so that the smoke can deteriorate air quality in Delhi,” said Sirsa, while sharing a video.

His comments came soon after AAP leader Saurabh Bharadwaj demanded cloud seeding for artificial rain in Delhi and claimed that Punjab’s AQI was less than 200 on Diwali, whereas it had shot up beyond 300 in the national Capital after the festival.

Bharadwaj also started a slugfest with the BJP, claiming that the Delhi government was running away from its commitment to carry out artificial rain a day after Diwali to clean the air.

Sirsa said that when Kejriwal was Delhi’s Chief Minister, he criticised Punjab farmers and their farm fires for poor AQI in the NCR but failed to take concrete steps to address other pollution-causing factors in the Capital.

Kejriwal has left behind a polluting legacy of 27 years, and the Rekha Gupta government is taking all possible steps to counter the problem by addressing multiple factors behind Delhi’s pollution, said the minister.

--IANS

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