A canal that lay buried under garbage for 27 years is about to be reborn as a festival ground. Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta announced on Monday, November 9 that BJP's national president Nitin Nabin will inaugurate an 11-kilometre-long Chhath Ghat built along the Munak Canal on November 12 — completing a transformation her government says was achieved in under one year.

27 years of neglect, undone in under a year

The Munak Canal is part of the Western Yamuna Canal system that feeds Delhi's water supply and irrigation network. For nearly three decades, stretches of the canal had become informal dumping grounds, choked with solid waste and largely inaccessible to residents. Previous city administrations had launched periodic cleaning drives along supplementary canal stretches since the 1990s, but a sustained, large-scale remediation linked to religious infrastructure had not materialised.

The BJP government's pitch is that where years of incremental effort failed, a focused push delivered results in months. Whether that timeline holds up to independent scrutiny is a question that will sharpen after the November 12 event — but the optics of a gleaming 11-km ghat ready for Chhath devotees carries unmistakable political weight ahead of the festival season.

What Chhath means to Purvanchal Delhi

Chhath Puja is a four-day festival honouring the Sun God and Chhathi Maiya (the sixth-day deity), observed with particular intensity by communities from Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh. In Delhi, the Purvanchal diaspora numbers in the millions, and Chhath is not merely a religious event — it is an assertion of identity, a collective reconnection with apni maati (one's native soil) far from home.

CM Gupta captured that sentiment directly in her post: 'Purvanchal ke hamare bhai-behenon ke liye Chhath keval parv nahin, apni maati, apni maa aur apni jadon se juda bhaav hai' — 'For our brothers and sisters from Purvanchal, Chhath is not merely a festival; it is a feeling tied to their soil, their mother, and their roots.' Governments across states with large Purvanchal populations have increasingly invested in ghat infrastructure as a way of signalling cultural respect to this community. Delhi's Munak Canal project follows that pattern at scale.

Preparations reviewed, instructions issued

Ahead of the inauguration, CM Gupta met with Chhath Puja committees and senior officials on Monday to review logistics and issue directives. The coordination meeting signals that the administration is treating this as a large public-gathering event, not just a ribbon-cutting. With an 11-km stretch expected to draw dense crowds during the predawn and dusk rituals that define Chhath, crowd management, lighting, and water access along the ghat will be critical tests of the project's real-world readiness.

The November 12 inauguration by the BJP's national president adds a party-level imprimatur to what is simultaneously a civic infrastructure announcement and a cultural outreach moment. For Delhi's Purvanchal community, the question is simple: will the ghat be ready, safe, and accessible when the sun dips on Chhath evening? The answer arrives in three days.