Kharge asks why India is becoming a 'Vishwaguru' in air pollution, seeks 'Hawa Ka Hisaab' from Modi

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Tuesday asked why India is becoming a “Vishwaguru” in air pollution, and challenged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to give the country a “Hawa Ka Hisaab”, an account of the air. He posted the attack on X on Tuesday afternoon.

“Why are we becoming a ‘Vishwaguru’ in air pollution?” Kharge wrote. “Piecemeal measures, PR stunts, broken promises and blame games have become the hallmark of the BJP.” He added that “clean air is a fundamental right, not a privilege to be granted by the Government”, and asked: “Will Modi ji dare to give the nation ‘Hawa Ka Hisaab’?”

The figures he cited

Kharge’s post rests on a set of numbers, each of them his claim. He said PM2.5 readings disappeared from 36 of Delhi’s 59 monitoring stations during this year’s peak pollution. He said an estimated 17,188 deaths in Delhi in 2023 were attributable to particulate pollution, nearly 15% of all deaths, a figure he drew from the Global Burden of Disease and an analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

On children, he cited the State of Global Air 2024 report to say that 1,69,400 children under five died of air-pollution-related causes across India in 2021.

On money, he said a September 2026 reply under the Right to Information Act showed that ₹1,154 crore, about 60% of the environmental compensation collected in Delhi, had not been spent. He also said Delhi had used only 17% of the National Clean Air Programme funds released to it through December 2025.

How we got here

Kharge’s post lands after a week of very poor air in the capital. On the morning after Diwali, November 9, Delhi’s average AQI stood at 368 at 7 am, with 15 stations in the severe band under stage three of the Graded Response Action Plan, and Burari Crossing and Sonia Vihar both at 441. That evening, Diwali-night readings that had been missing from the central board’s database were published: they showed PM2.5 at 3,744 at Mundka and lifted the 4 pm bulletin AQI from 344 to about 360. The AAP called the gap a fraud, while BJP leaders blamed farm fires in Punjab. Kharge’s line about stations going dark at the peak speaks to that same row over missing data.

The Supreme Court angle

Kharge said the Supreme Court had given the BJP-ruled governments of Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan two weeks to submit their responses and proposed measures. He did not say which order he meant, and the date was not in the post as reported.

The other side of the argument

Delhi’s winter pollution is routinely blamed in part on stubble burning in neighbouring states. Our earlier reports on Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav’s talks with startups and on the ₹80 crore AATAL source-tracing lab at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology’s Delhi branch show the Centre’s current emphasis on technology and data. Kharge’s post did not engage with either.

No response from the BJP or the Union Environment Ministry to the post had been found by the time of writing.

Why it matters to readers

Delhi’s air is a recurring winter problem. The questions Kharge raises, on whether monitors report, whether pollution-control money is spent and how many deaths are tied to bad air, are the ones that decide how well residents are warned and protected. His numbers come from named studies and an RTI reply, but his post does not link them, so each should be read as his claim until the underlying documents are produced.

What happens next

The Supreme Court’s two-week window, as Kharge describes it, is the next point at which the four states are to set out their measures. The daily air quality bulletins from the Central Pollution Control Board will show how Delhi’s air fares through the coming days.