look news india
There has been an uproar in the politics of Delhi as the video of senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Delhi government minister Pravesh Verma slapping a young man publicly during the inspection of road construction and repair work in Tilak Nagar assembly constituency of the capital Delhi went viral on social media. This issue of the Minister losing his temper while allegedly exposing the poor road construction and recording the video from his mobile has now become a full-fledged political arena. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has demanded the immediate arrest of the minister, calling him ‘goondaraj’ of BJP and arrogance of power. On the other hand, Aam Aadmi Party’s national convenor and former Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has directly attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the central government, calling it a dictatorial attempt to suppress the voice of the youth.
This entire incident happened in Tilak Nagar (Vikaspuri Ring Road), western area of Delhi, when PWD Minister Pravesh Verma had come to take stock of the recently constructed road along with local officials.
According to eyewitnesses and viral video footage, during the road inspection, Sahib Singh, social media coordinator of local Aam Aadmi Party MLA Jarnail Singh, was recording the road situation with his mobile camera. The young man claimed that the upper layer of the recently constructed road was being peeled off by hand and there was huge corruption in asphalting.
It can be clearly seen in the video that when the young man was raising questions on the poor quality of the road and turned the camera towards the minister, Pravesh Verma got enraged. He first lowered the young man’s mobile phone and then in a fit of rage slapped him hard on his face. After this scuffle which took place in the presence of police and security personnel, a huge commotion started on the spot.
Sahib Singh, the youth who was slapped, alleged while talking to the media that he had only tried to show the truth.
The young man said:
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“The PWD department had called us for road inspection. I showed the minister how the newly constructed road was falling apart. On this, the minister lost his temper and slapped me in front of the police.”
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The youth also made a serious allegation that after the slap, the supporters present with the minister threatened to kill him.
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The youth and the team of the local MLA have lodged a complaint in the local police station regarding the matter and have demanded an FIR and suspension against the minister.
After the video went viral on social media and was widely criticized, Minister Pravesh Verma issued a video statement on his ‘X’ (formerly Twitter) handle and clarified his position. However, he also acknowledged that what happened should not have happened.
Pravesh Verma said in his clarification:
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“Road construction work was going on on Vikaspuri Ring Road for several days. The local AAP MLA Jarnail Singh was pressurizing the PWD engineers to get commission from the contractors. When they did not get the commission, they were conspiring to make a false corruption video by uprooting the road built at night.”
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The minister further claimed, “I myself had called the MLA to the spot. When he came with his workers, he started misbehaving as soon as he came. One of his workers used extremely vulgar and dirty abuses about my family. When someone abuses your family in public, anyone can get angry and in that heat this incident happened. But our government will not tolerate obstruction of government work and commission taking.”
After this incident, the top leadership of Aam Aadmi Party has directly attacked the BJP and the Central Government. While sharing the video on social media, Arvind Kejriwal targeted the Modi government at the Centre.
Kejriwal posted:
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“A minister of Modi ji publicly slapped a young boy for exposing corruption in road construction. Such an arrogant minister should be immediately arrested. I myself will go to Tilak Nagar tomorrow and check the construction of that road.”
AAP leader and Delhi State President Saurabh Bhardwaj termed the minister’s conduct as cowardly and said that raising hands on an unarmed youth under police protection reflects the dictatorial mentality of the BJP. The opposition also taunted that on one hand the Modi government talks about reaching out to Gen-Z (young generation), and on the other hand its ministers are giving up on the youth asking questions.
This slapping incident has brought a new twist in Delhi politics. While the Aam Aadmi Party is preparing to hit the streets by calling it a huge scam in infrastructure construction, commission embezzlement and blatant hooliganism, the BJP is calling it a well-planned conspiracy to defame its development work. The dispute that started regarding this road in Tilak Nagar has now reached the police station and legal action, due to which the political conflict between the two parties is expected to intensify in the coming days.