Delhi BJP general secretary Ashish Sood today found himself caught in a controversy after he allegedly abused a municipal corporation officer in connection with the removal of hoardings in the Mahipalpur area of south Delhi. The episode occurred as Dushyant Kumar Chaturvedi, who is an inspector in the advertisement department of the municipal corporation, had gone along with his team to demolish hoardings placed on hotels in the area.

While carrying on with the work, Chaturvedi claimed he received a call from Sood, who is also the councillor from Janakpuri. Chaturvedi recorded the call and, in the recorded clip, the caller identifies himself as Sood before going on to abuse the civic officer and threaten him with dire consequences.

When contacted, Sood admitted to having made the call to Chaturvedi, but claimed that the inspector was removing legal hoardings and he had just tried to prevent him from doing so. "The inspector was removing legal hoardings through which the municipal corporation earns Rs 1.5 lakh... he was not removing illegal hoardings. I was just preventing him from doing so," said Sood.

This the second controversy involving a senior BJP leader in the last three days. Delhi BJP chief Satish Upadhyay found himself facing some embarrassment after it emerged that the garbage cleared by him and former AAP leader Shazia Ilmi on Wednesday in a posh Lodhi Road locality as part of the Swachh Bharat initiative was scattered there by civic workers specifically for that purpose. Photos in the media showed sanitation workers from the civic agency bringing garbage on a trolley and using it to litter the pavement outside the India Islamic Centre, allegedly some time before Upadhyay, Ilmi and others swept the site with brooms.