LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Friday took a veiled jibe at Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath who slammed AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal for the state of Yamuna's cleanliness during a campaign for the upcoming polls in Delhi.
Yadav asked if Adityanath could sip water from the Yamuna in his own state in Mathura.
While campaigning for the BJP for the Delhi assembly polls on Thursday, Adityanath alleged Kejriwal, the former chief minister of Delhi, has committed a sin by turning the Yamuna into a "dirty drain".
The UP CM, whose cabinet took a dip in the Sangam in Prayagraj on Wednesday, asked if Kejriwal and his ministers could take a bath in the Yamuna.
"He should answer if he has any moral courage," Adityanath said.
In a seeming response to his remarks, Yadav wrote a post on X but did not name anyone.
"Before challenging others, people should dare sip water from the Yamuna which flows through Mathura in their state," the SP chief said in a Hindi post.
In his campaign speech in Delhi's Kirari, Adityanath had said devotees and saints in Mathura-Vrindavan are victims of AAP's "sins" as Yamuna water reaches the state as a dirty drain.
He accused the AAP and Arvind Kejriwal of never cooperating for the Yamuna's cleanliness with the central government under the Namami Gange project.
Yadav's Samajwadi Party and Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party are constituents of the INDIA bloc which was formed ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls to counter the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).