Delhi AAP slams BJP over BIS report on drinking water, says 'don't do dirty politics'

Amid the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) report on drinking water in Delhi, the Aam Aadmi Party on Tuesday, November 19, slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party with a caricature. Taking to the microblogging site, AAP posted a caricature on their official account accusing BJP of doing 'dirty politics'.

In the image, we can see a man wearing a saffron kurta holding a saffron lotus with dirt falling from its stem in his hand representing as BJP. There is a woman facing the man in a sari stopping the man from putting the lotus inside the bucket. According to the picture, the BJP is saying that the water is not worth drinking whereas the woman is seen stopping the man and saying 'do not spoil our water to grow your lotus'. Lotus is also a symbol of the BJP. The image also shows a paper in the corner claiming that the water in Delhi is better than the European standards.

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Earlier, in a statement released by the chief spokesperson of Aam Aadmi Party, Saurabh Bharadwaj rejected the water quality report released by Union Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution Ram Vilas Paswan. "We Challenge the BJP's Central government and its Minister Ram Vilas Paswan to pick water samples from Delhi and cities ruled by BJP in our presence and send it for audit to a neutral agency," said Bharadwaj in a statement.

Saurabh Bharadwaj further accused the BJP government of doing low-level politics on water quality after they failed to control air pollution. "The BJP's Central Government is stooping too low by doing politics on water quality after they failed miserably in controlling air pollution in entire Northern India.

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The BIS report

Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan released a report on a test conducted by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) for the Food and Consumer Affairs Ministry. It tested 10 samples in each city to see if they met the Indian Standard 10500:2012 (Specification for Drinking Water).

While releasing the report, Paswan said, "Mumbai tops ranking released by the BIS for quality of tap water. Delhi is at the bottom, with 11 out of 11 samples failing on 19 parameters. We were getting complaints regarding water from all over the country. We asked for some samples of water from Delhi. The tap water from Delhi did not meet the Indian standards. Later, we asked for water samples from all state headquarters."

The ministry, later on, released an official statement on water quality in Delhi which reads, "In the city of Delhi, all the 11 samples drawn did not comply with the requirements of the Indian Standard. The samples failed in several of the parameters. All the 10 samples drawn from Mumbai were found to comply with the requirement."

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