At centre of Delhi ‘slapgate’ row, who is minister Parvesh Verma | Political Pulse News
Delhi PWD Minister Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma on Sunday grabbed headlines after a video clip circulated on social media, which showed him purportedly slapping a youth during his inspection of road repair work in Vikaspuri area in west Delhi.
Sharing the video clip on X, AAP MLA from Tilak Nagar, Jarnail Singh, alleged: “He (Parvesh) had come to inspect the road, but upon seeing scam after scam being exposed, he lost his cool and ended up indulging in thuggery (goondagardi) with my colleague who was recording the video.”
Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma, too, shared a video on X later in which he alleged that AAP workers had abused his family. “Listen to the full truth behind today’s incident… but what happened should not have happened,” he said in his post.
Verma, who defeated AAP supremo and three-time Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal in his New Delhi seat in the 2025 Delhi Assembly elections, was inducted as a minister in the BJP Cabinet headed by CM Rekha Gupta.
While Verma, a Jat leader, has been a front-runner in the chief ministerial race, the BJP leadership finally named Rekha Gupta, first-time MLA from Shalimar Bagh, for the top job.
Throughout Verma’s 2025 campaign, his supporters pitched him as a CM candidate. “The party will decide… If they want to make me CM, I will heed their demands,” he had then told The Indian Express.
New Delhi is the seat from where Kejriwal had defeated late Congress stalwart and ex-CM Sheila Dikshit in 2013, ending her 15-year rule. The seat, which this time also saw Sheila’s son Sandeep Dikshit in the fray as a Congress candidate (he finished a distant third), has always been a barometer of the popularity of the incumbent government in Delhi.
Delhi minister Pravesh Verma slaps man after altercation over road quality
Read: pic.twitter.com/FRq7veQYJj
— The Indian Express (@IndianExpress) September 27, 2026
With 23 candidates including Kejriwal, Verma and Sandeep Dikshit, the contest in the New Delhi seat was intense. Verma finally pulled off the biggest upset of the Delhi polls, defeating Kejriwal by 4,089 votes, even as the BJP stormed to power in the national capital after 27 years, winning 48 out of 70 seats as against the AAP’s 22.
Verma, 47, made several promises during his poll campaign – making Yamuna a riverfront similar to the one at Sabarmati, giving houses to slum dwellers and providing them infrastructure, and ensuring 50,000 government jobs, flyovers, and a pollution-free Delhi.
The two-time West Delhi MP and one-time Mehrauli MLA, who has been with the BJP for close to three decades, kickstarted his campaign in mid-January.
While the AAP made allegations of voter list tampering, voter suppression and distribution of freebies by the BJP in violation of the Model Code of Conduct, Verma consistently targeted Kejriwal.
A key part of his campaign was built around allegations of massive expenditure and irregularities in the construction and renovation of the bungalow at 6, Flagstaff Road at Civil Lines, the official residence of Kejriwal during his tenure as the CM, which was dubbed “Sheesh Mahal” by the BJP. A model of the “Sheesh Mahal” was kept outside Verma’s house during his campaign.
In his rallies, Verma targeted the AAP chief, saying “Kejriwal has done nothing for Delhi in the last 11 years… While you all were dying of Covid, Kejriwal was busy building a ‘Sheesh Mahal’ for himself.”
He also questioned the efficacy of the AAP government’s welfare schemes, stating that they had not reached everyone in the city. He also called Kejriwal “aaropi”, referring to his alleged role in the excise policy scam case. The former Delhi CM has since been discharged from the case.
From Rs 3.2 crore in 2019, Verma’s assets jumped to Rs 96.5 crores in 2025, according to his election affidavit.
