Akhilesh shares purported video showing flip side of Ayodhya's Deepotsav

Lucknow: A day after 22 lakh 'diyas' were lit on the banks of Saryu River in Ayodhya, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav shared a purported video on X, showing some children taking out oil from lamps at a ghat and filling it in utensils.

"Poverty amid divinity... where poverty forces one to take oil from lamps, the light of celebration becomes dim. Our only wish is that there should also be such a festival in which not only ghats but every house of the poor gets illuminated."

It may be recalled that in a record feat, more than 22 lakh earthen lamps were lit on the banks of the Saryu river in Ayodhya on Saturday night in the seventh edition of the Deepotsav.

The 22.23 lakh earthen lamps -- 6.47 lakh more than last year -- were lit by 25,000 volunteers at the 51 ghats of Ram Ki Paidi along the river.

Ayodhya reverberated with chants of 'Jai Shri Ram' after the representatives of the Guinness Book of World Records counted the lamps using drones and registered it as a world record.