Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav came to Arvind Kejriwal's defense on Friday after Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath criticised the AAP leader over the Yamuna river's cleanliness during a campaign for the upcoming Delhi elections.


Taking a jab at Adityanath, Akhilesh questioned whether the UP CM would dare to drink water from the Yamuna in Mathura. "Those who challenge others should demonstrate by sipping water from Yamuna river which flows through Mathura in their state," the SP chief said in a Hindi post on X.






Akhilesh's remark was in response to Adityanath's campaign speech on Thursday for the Delhi assembly election, where he accused Kejriwal, the former Delhi CM, of committing a sin by turning the Yamuna into a "dirty drain".


Aditayanath Cabinet Challenges Kejriwal And His Ministers For Holy Dip In Yamuna


Earlier, Aditayanath, whose cabinet took a holy dip in the Sangam in Prayagraj on Wednesday, challenged Kejriwal and his ministers to take a bath in the Yamuna. "He should answer if he has any moral courage," Adityanath added, as reported by news agency PTI.


During the campaign in Delhi's Kirari, Adityanath alleged that devotees and saints in Mathura-Vrindavan suffer because of what he described as the AAP's "sins," claiming that the polluted Yamuna water reaches Uttar Pradesh in an unclean state. He also criticised Kejriwal for failing to cooperate with the central government under the Namami Gange project to clean the river.






Both Yadav's SP and Kejriwal's AAP are members of the I.N.D.I.A bloc, an alliance formed to counter the BJP-led NDA ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.


The Delhi Assembly elections are scheduled to be held in a single phase on February 5, and the counting of votes will be done on February 8. In total 699 candidates are vying for the 70 assembly seats in Delhi.


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