Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh again refused to meet his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal, who wanted to discuss the issue of deadly smog that has been enveloping the national capital.
Earlier on Tuesday morning, Kejriwal had asked Singh to meet him in Chandigarh over stubble burning by farmers leading to smog and pollution in the national capital and surrounding areas.
"Captain Amarinder Singh Sir, I am coming to Chandigarh on Wednesday to meet Haryana CM (Manohar Lal Khattar). Would be grateful if you could spare some time to meet me. It is in collective interest", Kejriwal said in a tweet.
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The Punjab Chief Minister's reply this evening was tweeted by his media adviser Raveen Thukral: "Stop politicising the #pollution issue, you know any meeting between us would be useless, and in any case now that the apex court is also seized of the matter, let us leave it to them and the central govt to find long-term solutions."
In Chandigarh, Singh claimed he failed to understand why the Delhi chief minister was trying to force his hand, knowing well that any such discussion would be "meaningless and futile".
Singh alleged that Kejriwal's tendency to indulge in petty street politics was well-known. He said that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader was "trying to divert" public attention from his government's "failure" to check the problem of pollution in Delhi, as exposed in the National Green Tribunal's response to the "ill-conceived" odd-even scheme. The problems faced by the national capital and Punjab on this count were completely different with no meeting ground, Singh said.
Stubble burning by farmers in Punjab and Haryana has been seen as major cause for smog and air pollution in the National Capital Region, by the authorities.
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