The final day of the Winter Session of the Delhi Assembly on Friday saw an intense exchange between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Opposition Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) over the air pollution crisis in the national capital.
While Environment Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa accused the previous AAP government of “years of inaction”, AAP MLAs countered that Delhi’s air quality has deteriorated the most under the BJP rule.
During a two-hour discussion on pollution, Mr. Sirsa said the government had shifted focus from “publicity-driven” measures to tackling pollution at its source. “While the previous government spent hundreds of crores on odd-even and smog towers, our government used the same resources to repair roads, reduce garbage mountains and address real sources of pollution,” he said.
‘Complete failure’
The Minister cited assessments by global agencies such as the World Health Organization and IQAir from 2014 to 2025, which repeatedly ranked Delhi as the world’s most polluted Capital, claiming they “exposed the complete failure” of the AAP government. Referring to the Comptroller and Auditor General of India’s findings, Mr. Sirsa said the “odd-even scheme failed to reduce pollution”, the Pollution Under Control system remained weak, and required air-quality monitoring stations were not installed.
