Oppn MPs Reach Parliament Wearing Masks to Protest Pollution

NEW DELHI: Highlighting growing concerns over Delhi’s worsening air quality, Opposition MPs on Wednesday arrived at the Parliament complex wearing masks and carrying oxygen cylinders.

Congress MP Deepender Hooda came wearing a mask, while another MP, Imran Masood, brought an oxygen cylinder to Parliament and demanded a debate on the issue.

“A situation has arisen where we are forced to inhale poisonous air. Every year this issue is raised, but no concrete steps have been taken and no budgetary allocation has been provided by the government. We demand that this issue be taken seriously and that the Prime Minister speak on it,” Hooda told reporters in the Parliament complex.

He called for the formation of a group of chief ministers from Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Rajasthan under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “A detailed plan with adequate budget allocation must be prepared to tackle air pollution in Delhi–NCR,” he added.

Hooda also said that in 2017 he had introduced a Private Member’s Bill  the Right to Clean Air  but the government rejected it. “Even today, when I moved an adjournment motion on this issue in the Lok Sabha, it was rejected by the Speaker,” he said. Congress MP Imran Masood carrying an oxygen tank was also part of the protest.

Raising the issue in the Rajya Sabha, DMK MP P. Wilson described Delhi as a “gas chamber” and urged the government to reconsider holding the winter session during peak smog months.

Participating in a debate on a resolution to extend the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Amendment Act, 2024, to Manipur, Wilson said pollution is no longer just a “statutory concern” but has become a “national emergency,” and called for decongesting the national capital.

“Nowhere is pollution more visible than here in the capital. Delhi has become a gas chamber. Parliament cannot sit in silence while citizens gasp for survival. In 2025, Delhi has not seen a single day that meets WHO’s safe standards. People in Delhi are losing over eight years of life expectancy due to pollution,” Wilson said.

He added that stubble burning in Haryana and Punjab is not the only cause of Delhi’s pollution, calling vehicular emissions the “single largest culprit.”

“In this country, why should all work be carried out from Delhi? The government in 2025 need not function the same way it did in 1950,” he said.

Wilson questioned whether it was necessary to hold the winter session during peak smog days and suggested that the required number of sittings could be met in other sessions. “There is no constitutional mandate that every constitutional body has to sit in Delhi,” he noted.