Anyone in the National Capital Region who can afford one has an air purifier and usually in the plural, but one visible in a photograph showing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Delhi chief minister Rekha Gupta has sparked a storm with everyone from politicians to social media sleuths weighing in.
Congress leader Pawan Khera was among the first to take aim.
“Narendra Modi himself is sitting with the help of an Rs 14,000 air purifier. But those who don't have the money to buy clean air, how will they live?” he asked on X (formerly Twitter), adding that “if Modi is there, even breathing becomes impossible.”
Many, including Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate, turned detectives to claim that said purifier was from Philips, a Dutch company, and manufactured in China.
“Is the slogan of buying indigenous products only for the public?” Shrinate asked. “When it comes to himself, he installed an expensive foreign air purifier. Wow, Modi ji, wow!”
One user wrote, dripping sarcasm: “Is there any Indian product that Modiji uses personally ( other than his army of trolls )?”
The Aam Aadmi Party also joined the chorus. Spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj said the purifier was proof of misplaced priorities, “The PM has installed an air purifier for himself, while the CM is saying that pollution has been reduced.”
On X, the party accused both leaders of “arranging clean air for themselves” while “choking the entire Delhi with pollution.”
Congress’s Shama Mohamed wrote on X that both Modi and Gupta “have dozens of air purifiers for themselves, but promote firecrackers and allow people to burst them till midnight, violating Supreme Court guidelines.”
She asked why the government doesn’t “distribute air purifiers to all residents of Delhi, especially the poor who suffer the most from pollution.”
Some pushed back against the outrage.
“People here really think the Prime Minister sits on Amazon at night and orders these things himself,” one user wrote in response to Khera’s post.
Another posted a photograph of Rahul Gandhi as a child: “He is the PM of Hindustan but just because his background is modest, he can't use an air purifier? But your prince, who is nobody, can celebrate his 7th birthday in an Air India special plane.”
Yet another provided an AI-answer snapshot to say that Philips air purifiers were made in Chennai.
Delhi chief minister Rekha Gupta claimed that “air pollution in the city on Diwali night was less this year as compared to the previous year.”
The data, however, told another story. Although readings of pollution levels varied wildly between agencies such as the Central Pollution Control Board and the Swiss company IQAir, the consensus was that Delhi’s air quality is indeed abysmal.
According to one study, the 2025 post-Diwali period was the most polluted since 2021 when average PM2.5 concentration touched 488 micrograms per cubic metre, three times more than the pre-festival level of 156.6 micrograms per cubic metre.
