A group of Delhi BJP leaders met Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday evening hours after the Supreme Court stayed a controversial demolition drive in violence-hit Jahangirpuri. It's not immediately known what transpired at the meeting which lasted for an hour at the MHA headquarters.
Delhi BJP chief Adesh Gupta, MP Ramesh Bidhuri, MLA Ram Bir Bidhuri and senior party leader Maninder Singh Sirsa were present at the meeting.
The anti-encroachment drive was undertaken a day after Gupta wrote to the party-ruled North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) to identify illegal constructions of rioters in Jahangirpuri and demolish them using bulldozers.
The Supreme Court, however, stopped the controversial move and agreed to hear a petition challenging the action of the civic bodies. A bench headed by Chief Justice N.V. Ramana ordered status quo in the present situation, and said the petition would be listed before an appropriate bench.
The demolition drive has drawn flak from the opposition parties with Congress president Rahul Gandhi urging Prime Minister Narendra Modi to switch off "bulldozers of hate" and switch on power plants, in an apparent reference to the acute coal shortage in the country.
The Aam Admi Party said razing the residence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah and the BJP headquarters using bulldozers will free the country from communal violence and riots forever. The party alleged that it was the BJP that had engineered clashes between two communities in Jahangirpuri during a Hanuman Jayanti procession last week as well as other such incidents of violence in various parts of the country during Ram Navami.
Leaders from the Left parties, some of whom were the only Opposition representatives at the demolition site, also hit out at the BJP-led Centre over the use of bulldozers in the area.
