Clean water is a right, not a favour: Rahul Gandhi hits out at MP govt

The Indore water crisis has sparked a fierce political confrontation, with leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi launching a blistering attack on the BJP-led Madhya Pradesh government, accusing it of presiding over a “murder of the right to life” through negligence and administrative apathy.

In a strongly worded post on X on Friday, the Congress leader said Indore’s taps did not deliver water but “poison”, while the administration slept “like Kumbhakarna.” Grief, he said, had seeped into every household, particularly among the poor, who were left defenceless in the face of official indifference. “Those whose hearths have gone cold needed compassion; instead, they were met with arrogance,” he wrote, taking aim at statements made by BJP leaders after the tragedy.

Rahul Gandhi said residents had repeatedly flagged the supply of foul-smelling, contaminated water, but authorities failed to act in time. He posed pointed questions over how sewage mixed with drinking water, why the supply was not immediately shut off, and when accountability would finally be fixed. “These are not ‘freebie’ questions,” he said. “Clean water is not a favour — it is a fundamental right to life.”

Indore, often held up as India’s cleanest city, now finds itself grappling with a grim public health emergency. In the Bhagirathpura area, residents reported discoloured, bitter-tasting water flowing through municipal pipelines. Soon after consumption, hundreds fell ill with vomiting, diarrhoea, dehydration and high fever, overwhelming local hospitals.

Officials say the outbreak has already claimed at least nine lives, with around 200 patients admitted for treatment. Preliminary findings suggest sewage seeped into the drinking water network due to infrastructure lapses, triggering the outbreak of waterborne disease.

Placing the tragedy in a wider context, Rahul Gandhi described Madhya Pradesh as an “epicentre of administrative failure,” citing past incidents ranging from deaths linked to contaminated cough syrup to children dying in government hospitals, and now fatalities caused by polluted drinking water. He also accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of silence whenever the poor suffer.

As investigations into the contamination continue, residents of Indore are demanding answers, accountability and, above all, the assurance that safe drinking water will once again flow from their taps.

With IANS inputs