As Delhi broke an 88-year-old rain record this morning in a much-needed respite from an unprecedented months-long heatwave and several pockets of the city reported widespread inundation, Lt Governor VK Saxena got a rare shout-out from his political rival and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor.
Mr Tharoor, in a post on X, posted a video of the street outside his Delhi home sunk under waist-deep water. Locals were seen wading through the flooded road with sticks in hand to gauge the depth and any open sewers.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP in his usual inimitable flair wrote, "This is the corner just outside my home in Lutyens' Delhi. Woke up to find my entire home under a foot of water - every room. Carpets and furniture, indeed anything on the ground, ruined. Apparently, the stormwater drains in the neighbourhood are all clogged so the water had no place to go. And they switched off the electricity at 6 am for fear of electrocuting people. Warned my Parliament colleagues that I might not make it there without a boat. But the city managed to pump water out of the roads and I did arrive in time!"
However, in less than an hour, he tipped his hat in a rare praise for the "courteous and responsive" Delhi Lt Governor, whom Mr Tharoor called a "conscientious civil servant".
Replugging this earlier post, Mr Tharoor wrote: "Amazed and impressed that this tweet elicited, within minutes, a phone call from the Lieutenant-Governor of Delhi himself! Shri VK Saxena was courteous and responsive and explained the constraints on effective action arising from the division of responsibilities between Union and State Governments. He does understand the principal problem lies in the failure to clear clogged drains regularly and pledged to do everything in his power to ensure this is done before the next major shower. Hats off to a conscientious civil servant!"
Delhi received nearly 230 mm of rainfall between 8:30 am on Thursday and 8:30 am today, marking the highest 24-hour rainfall in June since 1936.
The torrential downpour brought life to a standstill in several parts of the national capital region. Visuals showed inundated roads, long meandering traffic in most areas of the city, and submerged cars.
A portion of the roof of the departure complex of Delhi Airport's Terminal 1 collapsed in the early morning, killing one and injuring six others.
All departures from Terminal 1, which only operates domestic flights, have been suspended till midnight, the civil aviation ministry said.
Monsoon In Delhi Soon
The monsoon is set to arrive in Delhi by the end of this week, the IMD said.
Last year, monsoon hit Delhi on June 26.
