The BJP on Tuesday said the Supreme Court's directive on pollution is a slap on the face of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and demanded that he apologise for turning the national capital into a gas chamber.
This came after the top court, earlier in the day, directed Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan to ensure that crop residue burning was stopped "forthwith", amid a spike in pollution levels in Delhi-NCR.
A bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Sudhanshu Dhulia said Delhi can't be made to go through this year after year.
"There cannot be a political battle every time," the bench told the counsel representing the Punjab government.
The court also directed the Delhi government to ensure that municipal solid waste was not burnt in the open.
Reacting to the court's directive, BJP national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla said, "After the complete expose of the Aam Aadmi Party by the Supreme Court on Delhi's Air Pollution and Punjab stubble issue, Arvind Kejriwal should apologise for making Delhi a gas chamber and stealing our right to breathe fresh air over the last 8 years".
All that Mr Kejriwal did was "blame others including Diwali" for the rise in pollution levels in Delhi, he charged in a post on X.
"This is like a slap on Arvind Kejriwal's face," BJP IT department head Amit Malviya wrote on X, Commenting on the court's directive to the Delhi government.
He hoped that Kejriwal would now stop blaming “everyone under the sun, except his own government in Punjab and Delhi." "People in Delhi-NCR are forced to inhale poisonous air because of one man's incompetence, who has reduced Delhi to a gas chamber," Mr Malviya said in an apparent reference to Kejriwal.
Pollution levels in Delhi were recorded in the "very poor" category on Tuesday morning after five consecutive days of "severe" air quality.
The concentration of PM2.5 - fine particulate matter capable of penetrating deep into the respiratory system and triggering health problems - exceeded the government-prescribed safe limit of 60 micrograms per cubic metre by seven to eight times in the capital.
It was 30 to 40 times the healthy limit of 15 micrograms per cubic metre set by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Several cities in neighbouring Haryana, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh have also reported hazardous air quality. Ghaziabad recorded an AQI of 338, Gurugram 364, Noida 348, Greater Noida 439 and Faridabad 382.
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