NEW DELHI: Samajwadi party leader Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday alleged that the BJP-led governments in Lucknow and at the Centre were engaged in a conflict with each other and claimed UP CM Yogi Adityanath’s ‘pig’ remark was addressed to Delhi.
He highlighted the contradiction between the UP state pollution control board’s claim that the Ganga was clean and a central agency’s report declaring it unfit for bathing, while the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had also raised concerns about its pollution levels.
“None of us said that the quality of water of river Ganga is bad, Central Pollution Control Board said that…So, who was the govt calling ‘suar’? I think, in the fight between Delhi and Lucknow, they are abusing each other. If Uttar Pradesh Pollution Board is saying that the water is clean and Delhi’s Pollution Board says that the water is bad, it means ‘Lucknow’ was calling ‘Delhi’ suar (pig),” he said.
This came after UP CM Yogi Adityanath had attacked the opposition saying “vultures got dead bodies, pigs got dirt” in an apparent reference to Maha Kumbh stampede.
“Vultures got only dead bodies. Pigs got dirt. Sensitive people got a beautiful picture of relationships. People with faith got a sense of fulfilment. Gentlemen got gentlemanliness, the poor got employment, the rich got business. Devotees got clean arrangements… Devotees got God. It means that everyone has seen and felt things according to their nature and character,” he had said.
Following this, Akhilesh had questioned the choice of words being used for Maha Kumbh saying, “But those who searched for their loved ones at the Maha kumbh neither found their names in the list of the deceased—those lost forever—nor in the lost-and-found registers. Some sought political opportunism at the Maha kumbh and found a means of self-promotion, but in doing so, they lost their morality, integrity, and human sensitivity—along with their restraint in speech.”
Recently, a report by Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) had found that the Sangam waters, where millions of devotees have been taking holy dips daily during the Maha Kumbh, to contain alarming levels of fecal and total coliform. This had prompted the National Green Tribunal (NGT) to summon Uttar Pradesh government authorities.
The Yogi government had dismissed the report saying that Sangam was fit for both “snan” (bathing) and “aachman” (ritual drinking), calling it a “false campaign is only to defame the Maha Kumbh”.