Delhi's Chhath Puja Celebrations: A Political Showdown Between AAP and BJP

Ever-growing state patronage for arrangements in the National Capital and a war of words between the AAP and the BJP over the cleanliness of the Yamuna ahead of the festival. Every year, Chhath Puja , celebrated by Delhi’s substantial Purvanchali community, becomes as much a political occasion as a devotional one. This year is no different. The Rekha Gupta-led BJP government has emphasised the scale and spectacle of its patronage: it has made arrangements at 1,482 Chhath ghats across 996 locations in Delhi, and developed an 11-km-long ghat along the Munak Canal, inaugurated by BJP national president Nitin Nabin. North East Delhi MP, and arguably the Delhi BJP’s biggest Purvanchali face, Manoj Tiwari even took a dip in the Yamuna in Sonia Vihar ahead of the festival to claim that the BJP government has made strides in cleaning up the river and making it safe for dipping during the Puja. The Delhi government kicked off an electric cruise on the Yamuna between Sonia Vihar and Jagatpur in North East Delhi days ahead of the festival, and hosted a light-and-sound show on the banks of the Yamuna on the first day of Chhath. The Opposition AAP has made sure to galvanise around it. While ministers fan across ghats making visits, AAP’s Burari MLA Sanjeev Jha, who is also one of its key Purvanchali faces, visited ghats and accused the government of inadequate preparations at these. The biggest flashpoint, though, was the spotting of hundreds of dead fish in the Yamuna near Sonia Vihar earlier this week that coincided with a deterioration in the quality of raw water drawn from the Yamuna, with a spike in ammonia levels. Delhi Water Minister Parvesh Singh Sahib Verma alleged that “some people” had deliberately dumped fish in the river and that the role of AAP workers in this would be investigated. In turn, AAP Delhi head Saurabh Bharadwaj alleged that the government’s claims of cleaning the Yamuna lay “exposed” and that Verma was “rattled and making baseless statements”. The barbs have continued over the days. For instance, the BJP declared on social media, “Under AAP’s rule, devotees got nothing but dirty water, dilapidated ghats and hollow promises. Under the BJP government, clean ghats, better arrangements and respect for faith.” Chhath Puja is a four-day celebration dedicated to the Sun, observed in Bihar, parts of eastern Uttar Pradesh, and Nepal. In Delhi, it is celebrated by its large Purvanchali community, which has its roots in Bihar and eastern UP, having migrated to the capital over time in search of work. Purvanchalis comprise at least 30% of Delhi’s population, according to rough estimates, and, by virtue of sheer numbers, particularly in East and North East Delhi and pockets of South Delhi, are electorally important in the capital. Along with election-time promises, major political parties have, over time, also been competing over their patronage of this important festival. The Yamuna also becomes central to this because devotees pray to the sun standing in a water body. Chandrachur Singh, who teaches Political Science at Delhi University’s Hindu College, said that while it was natural for political parties to be guided by numbers in their outreach, a large role was also played by the migrant community’s desire for the numbers to be valued and celebrated, and “treated with some kind of public exposition.” “Knowing that they are valued for their numbers, there is also a desire for enjoyment of the assertion. In Delhi, the migrants come from an agrarian set-up or qasbas and settle in the peripheries of the city. By accepting and recognising that desire, for political parties, Chhath becomes an important symbol for parties to claim they have been empowering and inclusive,” he said. The recognition instituted by the state government to Chhath Puja has steadily increased over the decades. It was first declared a public holiday in 2014, while Delhi was under President’s Rule, after being observed as a restricted holiday. There had been demands for a holiday not only from the BJP, but also from within the Congress, notably from former MP and MLA Mahabal Mishra, a prominent Purvanchali leader in Delhi, who joined the AAP in 2022. Since then, an increasing number of ghats have been set up across the city, said Mishra, who said that the arrangement of ghats for celebration had started under Sheila Dikshit’s Congress government. “It started with just around 11 ghats. Then under the AAP government, this grew to around 1,100, and this time we are hearing of more than 1,400 ghats. I am happy to see that what had begun then has grown over time,” he said. Delhi BJP’s Purvanchal Morcha general secretary Sanjay Tiwari cited the large population making a “proper celebration” necessary, and foregrounded the BJP’s claim to have brought celebrations back to the river. Since 2021, the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) has prohibited Chhath celebrations on the Yamuna floodplains, citing a 2015 National Green Tribunal order prohibiting throwing of puja material, food grains, and waste into the river. This was during the AAP government in the state and the devotees would dip in artificial ponds set up in different parts of Delhi. Then last year, the government permitted devotees to worship along the Yamuna. Like everything else, this too is a terrain of political contest. “When Rekha Gupta’s government came, she said that we will prepare ghats on the Yamuna again for people to worship. Maybe the Kejriwal government had not allowed it during its time because the Yamuna was so dirty. Now preparations for Chhath prayers have been undertaken on a full scale again. I won’t say the Yamuna is 100% clean, but efforts are ongoing and results are coming,” Tiwari said. The AAP, in turn, alleges that the lack of permission during its government was imposed by the Lieutenant Governor-led DDMA.