AAP Delhi State President Saurabh Bharadwaj said the people of Delhi deserve answers from Lieutenant Governor (LG) Vinai Saxena, who once claimed to have full expertise on everything from Air pollution to the Yamuna cleaning and used to publicly ‘demonstrate’ how pollution could be fixed.
The AAP Delhi State President pointed out that when the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Government was in power, the LG frequently descended on the streets with large teams of officers and media crews, giving televised briefings and could be fixed if there was honest intent. Saurabh Bharadwaj said that the same LG is completely silent today under the BJP government, and the public must know why.
During a media interaction, senior AAP leader and Delhi State President Saurabh Bharadwaj said, “LG Sahab is a very learned man. He used to claim he had full knowledge from pollution to the Yamuna cleaning. Until last year, when the AAP Government was in place, he would come down on the streets with two hundred and fifty officers, take your cameramen along, appear on TV, and explain how pollution could be fixed and in which ways it could be fixed. He said that 74% of Delhi’s pollution was Delhi’s own pollution, which could be fixed with the right intent.”
The AAP Delhi Unit Chief questioned the intentions of the BJP government and the role of the LG under it. He said, “If intent is all that is needed, then is Rekha Gupta’s intent not honest today? Is Rekha Gupta not consulting LG Vinai Saxena? And if she is not consulting him, then why is the LG sitting silently, why is he frightened, is he afraid of losing his job. Is he worried that if he speaks, the government will remove him from the post of LG. Vinai Saxena must answer this to the people of Delhi.”
He said the LG repeatedly claimed that he was not merely the Lieutenant Governor but the “local guardian” of Delhi. Saurabh Bharadwaj asked why the same “local guardian” is nowhere to be seen today. “Why is that local guardian unable to step out of Raj Bhavan today? Has he not been given permission to come out? Has he not been given permission to issue a press release. Have guards been placed over him. Has the large PR and media department he created been shut down. The LG must answer all of this,” he asserted.
Meanwhile, AAP National Spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar on Wednesday said that the BJP is now beginning to acknowledge what former Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal had been saying and implementing for the last ten years. “The Arvind Kejriwal Government had implemented the country’s most aggressive and incentive-driven electric vehicle (EV) policy, providing subsidies, building an extensive charging infrastructure network, and rapidly electrifying Delhi’s bus fleet. As a result, under AAP’s governance, Delhi rose to the third position globally in electric vehicle adoption,” she noted.
AAP’s Chief National Spokesperson said it is encouraging that the Centre and neighbouring states are now advising other states to adopt EV policies. “But at the same time, I am concerned that this may remain only optics and tokenism. Meetings and statements alone will not bring change. A strong network of charging stations, attractive subsidies for people, and a robust policy framework are essential to move forward,” she said.
Priyanka Kakkar reminded that the Arvind Kejriwal Government had shifted every industry in Delhi to PNG (piped natural gas). On the other hand, she pointed out, there are 12 thermal power plants operating around the NCR. “Experts are clear that if these plants mandatorily install flue gas desulfurisation (FGD) technology, up to 70% of Delhi-NCR’s pollution will automatically reduce. But the BJP-ruled Central Government has weakened this mandatory provision,” she said.
Priyanka Kakkar urged the Centre to reconsider this decision and strictly enforce a transition to genuinely clean fuel and technology for all polluting industries.
