I am trying to access a simple string variable using EJS. But it returns me an element with same id instead of the string itself.

app.get("/favorites", function(req, res) {
    res.render("index", {active: "favorites", datas: datas});
});

This is the node.js server side

<script>
    if (<%= active %> === "favorites"){
        $("#favorites").attr("src","favorites-active.jpg");
    } else if (<%= active %> === "communities") {
        $("#favorites").attr("src","communities-active.jpg");
    }
    console.log(<%= active %>);
</script>

This is the script I run inside my EJS file, as the result I get the element with id 'favorites'

<div class="sideNav-Item" href="/favorites"onclick="ChangePage('favorites');">

I want to get "favorites" string value only? Please help.