New Delhi, Dec 2

The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) staged a walkout in the Delhi Assembly on Monday and held protests outside Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's office after Speaker Ram Niwas Goel rejected its request for discussion on the alleged supply of dirty water by the Delhi Jal Board (DJB).

Leader of Opposition Vijender Gupta and BJP legislators -- Manjinder Singh Sirsa, Om Prakash Sharma and Jagdish Pradhan -- displayed bottles filled with dirty water "collected from different colonies" in the House.

Gupta said the AAP government was "running away" from the discussion in the Assembly on polluted potable water being supplied to Delhiites.

As soon as the House proceedings begun, the BJP legislators raised the polluted water supply by the DJB.

The BJP wanted a full length discussion, but the Speaker rejected that. The BJP MLAs had also met the Speaker before the House proceedings and sought permission to raise the issue.

"The Speaker didn't allow discussion. This led to heated exchanges between MLAs and the Speaker. As the BJP MLAs were not being allowed to raise the issue, they walked out of the House," Gupta said.

Later, they staged a sit-in at the Chief Minister's Office.

Stating that it's misfortune of Delhiites that they are compelled to drink polluted water, Gupta said, "The government is trying to escape the issue," he said.

On November 16, the central government released a study on quality of piped drinking water supplied in 21 cities, including Delhi, with the tap water here termed "undrinkable".

Reacting to it, the AAP said the BJP government at the Centre was "stooping too low to do politics on water after it failed in controlling air pollution in entire northern India".

BJP walks out of Delhi Assembly over dirty DJB water