Prime Minister Narendra Modi not performing prayers for Chhath on the banks of the Yamuna gave the Opposition AAP a needle to twist into the BJP government in the capital.

It was widely speculated that the Prime Minister would offer Usha Arghya by taking the holy dip in North Delhi’s Vasudev Ghat on Tuesday morning to mark the end of the four-day festival celebrated by Biharis, ahead of the polls in that state.

AAP Delhi president Saurabh Bharadwaj told reporters: “For the past several days, the BJP and its government tried their best to create a fake Yamuna to show the world that they had cleaned the river and that its water was filtered like mineral water. A fake Yamuna was prepared for a photoshoot, so that the PM could offer prayers to the Sun God during Chhath, a week before the Bihar elections, from that fake Yamuna.”

This, he said, was to generate social media reels claiming that the BJP had cleaned up the Yamuna. Delhi has around 1,300 Chhath Ghats — ponds filled with clean water — for performing rituals. Of these, 17 are on the banks of the Yamuna, including Vasudev Ghat. Images of the pond at Vasudev Ghat — separated from the river and filled with large pipes — went viral after Bharadwaj led reporters there to call it a deception to make TV viewers believe that the Prime Minister was actually taking a dip in the Yamuna.