New Delhi: With the capital cloaked in toxic haze a day after Diwali, Delhi environment minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa hit back at AAP criticism and accused former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal of urging farmers to burn stubble in Punjab for worsening pollution in the region.
Addressing a press conference on Tuesday, Sirsa claimed the BJP govt in Delhi has started “cleaning up” the “mess wrought by the Kejriwal government”.
“They can’t digest this, so they are causing trouble across the state border in Punjab,” he said, displaying videos on a screen of purported stubble burning.
Sirsa made the statements as Delhi residents were allowed for the first time in years to burst ‘green’ firecrackers on Diwali.
Earlier in the day, Delhi AAP president and former health minister Saurabh Bharadwaj accused the BJP govt of having an “arrangement” with the “firecracker lobby”.
Earlier there was a doubt that BJP’s Delhi Govt had some arrangements with multi crore “Fire Cracker Lobby”, but now it’s almost certain.
Delhi Govt’s District Magistrates, their teams and Delhi Police did NOT stop the illegal sales of normal crackers though SC permission was…
— Saurabh Bharadwaj (@Saurabh_MLAgk) October 21, 2025
“Delhi govt’s district magistrates, their teams and Delhi Police did NOT stop the illegal sales of normal crackers though SC permission was for ‘green crackers’ only,” Bharadwaj said in a post on X.
Experts have previously said that allowing larges-cale bursting of ‘green’ firecrackers, which cause relatively lower pollution than conventional ones, would still add to pollution in the city.
Sirsa referred to average air quality index (AQI) and said the readings showed how ‘green’ firecrackers did not worsen “overall air quality”.
He said average AQI increased by a “mere 10 points”, showing that Diwali was not the main factor for pollution. In 2021, when firecrackers were banned in Delhi, he said, AQI went up 80 points post Diwali.
“This shows the incompetence of the Kejriwal government… All these years that Kejriwal banned firecrackers, pollution remained the same, or increased after Diwali. But we showed that celebrating Diwali was never the issue. This was just Kejriwal and AAP’s ploy against Hindu festivals,” the minister said.
Data by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) showed that Delhi’s 24-hour AQI was ‘very poor’, or 351, on Tuesday, slightly higher than 345 on Monday. A closer look at hourly AQI data shows that air quality in several pockets of the city plummeted to ‘severe’ on Diwali night and the hours after.
Every year, air pollution surges in Delhi-NCR with the onset of winter. Cold weather and calm winds, coupled with high emissions from vehicles, stubble burning and other sources, allow pollutants to linger in the air, enveloping the region under toxic haze.
Pollution typically worsens after Diwali, but this year, the festival was celebrated before winter sets in and stubble burning hasn’t picked up pace across states.
On Bharadwaj’s allegation about missing AQI data, Sirsa said AAP’s accusations were “false” and BJP had “nothing to hide”.
ThePrint verified that PM2.5 levels at monitoring stations like Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Rohini, Okhla, Anand Vihar and RK Puram were unavailable for a few hours Monday night onwards.
Sweeping, monitoring construction sites and use of smog guns were among the measures undertaken by the government to mitigate pollution, the minister said.
(Edited by Prerna Madan)
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