Stinking, slippery stairway into Sarayu, courtesy diyas

The event of lighting diyas on the banks of the Sarayu river was aimed at finding a place in the Guinness World Records

Shouldn’t there be a law against this? 171,000 diyas were lit on the banks of the Sarayu river by Bharatiya Janata Party supporters the day before Diwali at a function attended by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. The event was aimed at finding a place in the Guinness World Records. But all the diyas were lit using mustard oil. Some went out because of the breeze and the oil stayed in the diyas. A day after the event, several people descended on the banks to collect the oil left behind in the diyas, in order to sell it. Merchants, however, refused to buy the oil (supposedly weighing several kilos). Meanwhile, the diyas — and the overflow of oil —leached into the river. No one, it seems, was tasked with removing the refuse.  So the perfectly clean Ram ki Paudi is now a stinking, slippery stairway into the river.