Delhi BJP chief Satish Upadhyay and ex-AAP leader Shazia Ilmi at a cleanliness drive in New Delhi
Delhi BJP chief Satish Upadhyay today described as an "error that should not have happened", an embarrassing reveal that garbage was dumped on a road just before he took a broom to it as part of the
Swachh Bharat Abhiyan or Clean India mission on Wednesday.
"It was an error. It should not have happened. I don't agree with this. A person should be a part of the
Swachh Bharat Abhiyan with commitment, not for a photo-op," Mr Upadhyay told reporters.
In footage, he and others like former Aam Aadmi Party leader Shazia Ilmi are seen sweeping a road for a cleanliness drive outside the India Islamic Cultural Centre (IICC) in Delhi on Wednesday. Around a dozen people are seen sweeping the same spot, aware of cameras on them. Brooms are stacked at a corner, ready to be used.
At the same spot, uniformed IICC workers had allegedly dumped trash a short while before.
The BJP chief said he had joined the drive at an invitation from the Islamic Centre and knew nothing about garbage allegedly being dumped to stage the cleaning. Ms Ilmi too said she was there on the Centre's invitation and had stayed "only for five minutes."
Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal seemed to refer to the photographs when he told NDTV this morning, "You read in the newspapers today... Satish Upadhyay first had the streets littered and then cleaned. The BJP in Delhi has committed fraud on the PM's
Swachh Bharat campaign."
"We will investigate who did this... This is a symbolic gesture aimed at Muslim localities where the message of clean India needs to reach urgently," said M Wadood Sajid, a media advisor at the Islamic Centre.
The
Swachh Bharat mission was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 2, Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary. He had tagged several prominent celebrities and politicians challenging them to involve others in a gigantic country-wide cleaning drive.