Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav came in for a spirited defence of Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal after Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath attacked the AAP leader over pollution in the river Yamuna.
Taking a dig at Yogi Adityanath, Akhilesh Yadav questioned whether the Uttar Pradesh chief minister would dare to take a sip of water from the Yamuna river in Mathura.
“Before challenging others, people should dare sip water from the Yamuna, which flows through Mathura in their state,†the SP chief said in a post on X in Hindi.
“Those who challenge others should do ‘aachman’ with Yamuna’s water flowing through Mathura in their state,†he added in a post without naming Chief Minister Yogi.
Yadav’s sharp reaction comes after Chief Minister Yogi, while campaigning for the Bharatiya Janata Party in Delhi ahead of the assembly polls, said that the former chief minister Kejriwal had sinned by turning Yamuna into a “dirty drainâ€.
Yogi Adityanath, whose ministers took a dip in the Sangam during Maha Kumbh on Wednesday, questioned whether Kejriwal and his ministers could take a bath in the Yamuna like his cabinet. “He should answer if he has moral courage,†Yogi said.
Addressing an election rally in Delhi’s Kirari on Thursday, Yogi Adityanath further alleged that the devotees and saints of Mathura-Vrindavan were suffering due to the dirty Yamuna water coming from Delhi into Uttar Pradesh.
Interestingly, Akhilesh Yadav’s SP and Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP are integral constituents of the INDIA bloc that was announced earlier before the parliamentary elections in 2024.
Referring to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s jibe that Waqf Board is “land mafia boardâ€, the SP chief retorted that “BJP is the biggest land mafia and ruling party leaders are forcibly occupying land across the state with impunityâ€.
He alleged that the land of poor farmers is being acquired at throwaway prices and sold to the ruling party leaders. He alleged that farmers in Ayodhya and other parts of the state are being exploited.
