The Opposition Congress said on Friday the promise made by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the 2014 election campaign that he will clean Ganga was just another trick to woo people during the polls.

Citing an RTI reply that said the pollution levels in Ganga are higher than the levels recorded back in 2014, the Congress said the Centre failed to do anything for the river despite launching many programmes such as Namami Gange.

The party’s spokesperson and MP Abhishek Singhvi, at the AICC headquarters, said lab tests from Modi’s constituency Varanasi have found that bacterial contamination is now higher than the levels recorded back in 2014. Singhvi said, in 2014, Modi took pledge to save the Ganga by invoking dramatic emotions in a “heart wrenching tone”.

Singhvi said under the Namami Gange project, ₹22,238.73 crore were spent to clean the river. “Only one-fourth of the sanctioned projects are complete,” he added. “A majority of sanctioned and completed projects under Namami Gange are sewage treatment plants (STPs). Till date, Namami Gange had created only 329.3 million litres per day of the 2,278.08 mild sewage treatment capacities it aimed for. Only one fourth (26) of the sanctioned projects have been completed,” he claimed.

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