The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Wednesday alleged corruption in the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) over the use of chemicals to suppress froth on the Yamuna river ahead of Chhath Puja.

Showing a set-up installed by a contractor at the Kalindi Kunj Ghat, AAP Delhi president Saurabh Bharadwaj said, “The container belonging to a company is marked ‘Defoamer Stock’, which means the tanks and all the equipment used to spray chemicals to remove foam from the Yamuna have already been set up here. All the equipment and labourers have been present at this site for the past two to three days.”

He said the person who installed the set-up said a DJB engineer had given the instructions for it. “What is surprising is that the DJB has not even opened the tender yet,” he said, adding that it indicated “large-scale corruption”, with officials already in the know of who would be awarded the tender.

“That is why all the pumps have arrived here even before the tender has been opened. Containers holding the chemicals used for defoaming have also been brought to the site,” Mr. Bharadwaj said.

There was no response from the Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

A similar row broke out last year, when AAP accused the Delhi government of “hypocrisy”, noting that the BJP had once criticised the same chemicals that the AAP government had used to suppress foam on the river. In response, CM Rekha Gupta said that the defoamers were “completely eco-friendly and certified”.