Delhi Crowd Chants ‘AQI’ at CM Rekha Gupta During Messi Event Amid Severe Pollution

Amid alarming pollution levels blanketing Delhi, Chief Minister Rekha Gupta was greeted with chants of ‘AQI’, ‘AQI’ from a section of the crowd when she took the stage to welcome football icon Lionel Messi at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Monday.

A sharp drop in visibility and haze-obscured skyline marked another low for Delhi on Monday as the Air Quality Index (AQI) touched 498 in the morning and settled at 427 by the evening, pushing the Capital into ‘severe’ zone for the third day running.

A video showing a section of the crowd chanting ‘AQI’, ‘AQI’ has gone viral on social media, prompting the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to attack Gupta over the ‘severe’ pollution levels gripping the Capital.

“International Shame, Crowd for Messi shouts ‘AQI, AQI’ as soon as Delhi CM Rekha Gupta arrives,” AAP’s Delhi unit chief Saurabh Bharadwaj said in a post on X, sharing the clip. The AAP accused the BJP Governments at the Centre and in Delhi of being indifferent as toxic air choked Delhi-NCR and parts of North India, saying the situation had reached emergency levels.

“In a country where everyone is talking about pollution, the prime minister is just silent on the issue,” Bharadwaj said.

Gupta had earlier said her government is making all kinds of efforts to curb pollution. She also accused the previous AAP and Congress Governments of not doing anything on the issue.

“I want to ask those protesting at India Gate: The problem of air pollution is not new and has been around for years. Where were your protests before? What did the previous Government do? “There is a backlog of 27 years. The Government needs at least 27 months to fix things. After 27 months, you can ask me about the steps we took to address air pollution,” Gupta had said.