New Delhi:As Delhiites breathed in toxic air for the past many days, a meeting of a parliamentary standing committee to discuss the rising levels of air pollution in the national capital was postponed as most participants, including Member of Parliament from East Delhi, Gautam Gambhir, were absent.
Even as the Supreme Court pulled up agencies over worsening air quality in the national capital, officers from the agencies responsible for tackling air pollution on Friday chose to be absent from an important meeting called by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Urban Development here.
Only four MPs were present while out of the 29 on the list including many top officials like the Environment Secretary, Forest Secretary, the Secretary dealing with climate change, Delhi Development Authority (DDA) representative and the three chiefs of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi failed to turn up for the meeting.
The MPs who were present include Jagdambika Pal, Hussain Masoodi, CR Patil and Sanjay Singh.
On account of the absences, the meeting was called off.
One of them, the BJP's Gautam Gambhir, was among those who missed the meeting of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Urban Development.
He was widely trolled in social media with a photograph of his former cricketer V.V.S. Laxman enjoying jalebis.
“The agenda for Friday’s meeting of the Parliamentary Standing Committee was circulated a week back, which clearly stated that the objective was to discuss air pollution in Delhi-NCR. However, East Delhi MP Gautam Gambhir did not attend it,” a tweet by Aam Aadmi Party said.
“Delhi is choking and Gambhir is busy enjoying in Indore,” AAP said.
Commissioner of North Delhi Municipal Corporation Varsha Joshi said that she is in Lucknow attending a meeting on urban mobility scheduled months in advance, therefore, she could not attend the Delhi meeting.