Fact-check: Does AAP's 'fake Yamuna ghat' for PM Modi stick with Purvanchalis?

New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Sunday charged the BJP of staging a “fake Yamuna ghat with filtered water” for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, just for cameras and votes, while ordinary devotees are still being pushed into the dirty, foaming Yamuna during Chhath Puja. 

The BJP said nothing is fake, and claims it is actually the first party in Delhi in years to give Purvanchali devotees clean and usable ghats.

So who’s fooling whom?

Let us take a look at what AAP is alleging, what BJP is selling, and how Chhath is actually done in Delhi and NCR. The answer is uncomfortable for AAP. 

The line sounds explosive in a press conference, but on the ground, it risks sounding like AAP is attacking something Purvanchali families themselves consider normal and respectful.

Let’s go step by step.

What AAP is claiming (and why they think it will hurt the BJP)

AAP Delhi unit president Saurabh Bharadwaj came out swinging. He said the BJP is “fooling” Purvanchalis and “playing with the lives of lakhs of Purvanchalis in Delhi” for politics in Bihar.

“फ़र्ज़ीवाडे के सभी रिकॉर्ड टूटे”

👉🏼PM के लिए फ़िल्टर पानी वाली “नक़ली यमुना” बनाई गई है

👉🏼मग़र दिल्ली में गरीब पूर्वांचली लोगों के लिए प्रदूषित मल युक्त यमुना #BJPExposedOnYamuna#BJPExposedOnPollutionpic.twitter.com/RAGHmP2xWX

— Saurabh Bharadwaj (@Saurabh_MLAgk) October 26, 2025

His charge is very direct:

• A “fake Yamuna” ghat was created for the Prime Minister at Vasudev Ghat by filling it with clean, filtered water.
• This water was allegedly pulled from the Wazirabad drinking water pipeline meant for Delhi’s homes.
• Chemicals were sprayed on the Yamuna to break up the toxic foam and make the river look cleaner than it actually is.
• Meanwhile, common people are expected to stand in the same polluted Yamuna that even the Delhi Pollution Control Committee says can cause disease.

In simple words, AAP is saying the BJP built a movie set for Modi and left everyone else in sewage.

So AAP’s political logic is obvious: tell Purvanchalis that the BJP is using Chhath and using them.

But here is the catch.

What BJP is claiming (and why it is smarter than it sounds)

The BJP is acting like it knows exactly how this plays emotionally.

Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva said AAP’s outrage is nothing but “political frustration.” According to him:

• The ghat was cleaned, not faked.
• Clean water was made available for Chhath Puja.
• AAP is the only party in “the history of politics” angry about someone cleaning a ghat.
• And by the way, under Arvind Kejriwal, AAP either discouraged or restricted Chhath on the Yamuna bank for years. Now, in just eight months, the current BJP-led Delhi administration has “opened natural ghats” and made them usable again.

This implies, “We respected your festival. They tried to stop it. Who do you think is really against you?”

Like most BJP messaging in Delhi around Chhath, this is not subtle. It is built to speak straight to Purvanchali pride.

Fact check: Is a tanker-filled, lined Chhath pond “fake Yamuna”?

Here is where AAP’s slogan may actually collapse.

Let’s talk about how Chhath happens in real life, not in press bytes.

• In Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad, Ranchi and pretty much every city where Purvanchali migrants live in big numbers, local bodies and RWAs set up temporary ponds or lined tanks for Chhath Puja every year. 
• They literally dig pits, line them with plastic sheets, fill them with tanker water, put up lights and barricades, and call it a ghat. This is standard practice, not some secret VIP stunt.
• Housing societies do their own mini-ghats. Colonies block off a corner, fill it, decorate it, and do arghya there. Nobody screams “fake.” They say thank you.
• Many Purvanchali families from Bihar and eastern UP even do Chhath in a small built tank at home if they cannot reach a clean riverbank. It is normal. The ritual is about purity, fasting and offering to the Sun. It is not “invalid” just because the water did not come straight from a river.
• This year, Ranchi Municipal Corporation openly said it was setting up dozens of artificial ponds so people would not have to stand in dirty, unsafe water. They are not hiding it. They are proud of it.

Now, if Delhi does the same thing – sets up a controlled pond so devotees are not literally waist-deep in chemical foam – is that “fake”?

Or is that basic respect and basic hygiene, especially for women who have been fasting for 36 hours and are standing in the water before sunrise?

To most actual Chhath observers, a clean pond is not an insult. A dirty river is an insult.

This is the reality AAP is ignoring when it just shouts “fake Yamuna.”

Because to many Purvanchali devotees, “tanker water in a lined pond where I will not get rashes” sounds like care, not cheating.

The Yamuna is cleaner than last year, and that actually weakens AAP’s moral position

Let’s be honest about one thing AAP is not saying out loud: the Yamuna today is visibly better than it was last Chhath.

Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva has been saying the river is now clean enough not only to stand in, but even to do aachman, ritual sipping, and he has put party people on camera doing exactly that at ghats like Kalindi Kunj and ITO. 

He has also said that last year, under AAP, the same stretch of Yamuna “felt like a drain” and even sent him to the hospital after he entered it. 

The current Delhi government (now BJP-led) is also putting out numbers. Water minister Parvesh Verma has claimed that in just seven to eight months, levels of fecal contamination in several monitored points have dropped sharply, some stretches now meeting basic limits, dissolved oxygen is up, and pH is in the normal range. 

He is basically saying: we took charge, we tightened sewage treatment and drain interception, we desilted, and the river is on a recovery path. 

Is the Yamuna suddenly pure? No. Toxic foam is still turning up in some stretches, and AAP has filmed that foam and accused the BJP of spraying defoamer chemicals to make it disappear before Chhath. AAP says that’s cosmetic and dangerous. 

But here’s the uncomfortable reality for AAP: “Cleaner than last year, not fully clean yet” is actually a believable story to most people. It sounds like work in progress, not magic. The BJP is openly saying this will take time, roughly 2 to 3 more years to fully fix the Delhi stretch of the Yamuna, and has already floated a longer-term clean-up plan for the river with a 2027-type horizon. 

That pitch (“we started cleaning, you can already see improvement, give us a little more time to finish it”) is politically strong because it feels reasonable.

Now compare that with AAP’s position. AAP ran Delhi for almost 11 years. In that period, the Yamuna turned into national embarrassment footage every single Chhath, white foam, chemical stink, people standing in grey water up to their waists, and AAP’s own leaders used to argue that “cleaning Yamuna will take time.” 

Today, the same AAP is standing on the bank and yelling “fake ghat, fake water, all drama” at a government that has been in charge for months and is at least showing visible improvement on camera and producing lab numbers. 

That is why this part bites AAP.

When AAP says “this is fake,” BJP answers, “Really? After 11 years of you, we are the first ones who can even ask people to stand in this water without vomiting, and you’re calling that fake?” And then BJP adds the killer line: “You had a decade and Rs 6,500 crore and Yamuna still looked like a drain. We’ve had months.”

So the more AAP screams “fake Yamuna,” the easier it is for BJP to turn and say, “No, what was fake was 11 years of your promises.”

That’s the real damage.