Bharatiya Janata Party leaders today staged a dharna outside Sarojini Nagar police station to 'expose Aam Aadmi Party's double standards with regards to cutting of trees' in the Capital.

Leader of Opposition Vijender Gupta, MLAs Manjinder Singh Sirsa, Jagdish Pradhan and rebel AAP leader Kapil Mishra accused Delhi Environment Minister Imran Hussain of taking Rs 23 crore as commission to approve cutting of trees in Delhi.

They sought to back the allegations with a copy of letter, dated October 2017, that was allegedly signed by Imran Hussain.

BJP sought to back the claim with this document

The letter, Vijendra Gupta claimed, shows that the minister gave a nod to the cutting of trees twice before the documents were sent to Lt Governor Anil Baijal.

Vijender Gupta said that on the basis of available documents and information, it can be concluded that the Aam Aadmi Party government quietly gave permission to chop down trees but when the public objected, they put the blame on the Central government. However, the Centre, Gupta said, has no role whatsoever for granting this approval.

In a statement, Vijender Gupta also stated that the matter of felling of trees comes under Delhi Preservation of Trees Act 1994 (Delhi Act 1994) and that the Delhi government is fully competent to grant approval for felling of trees.

BJP alleged that Delhi Environment Minister Imran Hussain accepted bribe.

BJP leaders alongwith protestors were seen sloganeering and raising banners against the Kejriwal government for 'misguiding the public'. Rebel AAP leader Kapil Mishra said that now that Imran Hussain has been ousted, Arvind Kejriwal should ask his minister to resign.

There has been a lot of political slugfest ever since the decision to cut over 16,000 trees was made. They are going to be cut to build flats for government employees and a commercial complex in seven colonies of South Delhi.

NBCC is redeveloping Sarojini Nagar, Netaji Nagar, Nauroji Nagar while the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) is managing the rest four colonies in Kasturba Nagar, Thyagraj Nagar, Srinivaspuri and Mohammadpur.

Several protests broke out against the decision, with locals and activists launching their own 'Chipko Movement', a forest conservation movement where people embraced trees to prevent them from being cut in Uttarakhand (then Uttar Pradesh) in the 1970s.