'Ganga cleaning shows BJP's communal agenda'

A day after mocking Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Clean India campaign, Samajwadi Party (SP) on Friday took potshots at Modi for taking up cleaning of the Ganges river only, though there are many polluted rivers in the country.

“Taking up cleaning of only one river and leaving others will not solve the problems.....Yamuna is more polluted than the Ganges and Delhi is the biggest culprit in this regard,” UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav said while speaking at the SP national convention here on Friday.

Launching an attack on the ‘Namami Ganga’ project, he said that the BJP only wanted to take political mileage and so it has taken up cleaning of the Ganges only.

“It is a political and communal agenda and should be opposed. It is unfortunate,” he added.

He said that the Centre should not discriminate between the rivers and undertake cleaning of all polluted rivers. Akhilesh said that the BJP had deviated from its election manifesto.

“Instead of fulfilling the promises made in its manifesto, the BJP leaders are now sweeping the streets in Delhi,” the Chief Minister said. On Thursday, the SP leaders had mocked Modi’s Clean India campaign.

“The Prime Minister talks about trade when he visits foreign countries but in India he talks about broom,” senior SP leader and UP minister for PWD Shivpal Singh Yadav had said. He added that Modi now wanted to make the sweepers jobless.

Senior UP minister Azam Khan had also made an indirect reference to the campaign and said that he had given “pens to those, who had brooms in their hands”.