Balram Sampla
Geopolitics
(Samajweekly) There is a moment in politics when pretence falls away and the real face of power is revealed. Delhi got that moment this week, and it wasn’t pretty.
A young man stood on a public road, doing nothing more than his job , filming what he believed was shoddy construction under a scheme funded by public money. He wasn’t obstructing anyone. He wasn’t threatening anyone. He was holding up a phone. And for that, he was slapped across the face by a sitting Cabinet Minister of the Delhi government, live on camera, in broad daylight, in front of onlookers and reportedly the police.
Let that sink in. A man whose salary, security detail, and official car are paid for by the very taxpayers he serves decided that the appropriate response to being questioned was violence. Not an explanation. Not a promise to investigate. A slap.
This is not a minor lapse in temper. It is a window into how power increasingly sees itself in this country. Not as a service extended to citizens, but as a status that citizens exist to serve. When the government that answers to voters begins treating scrutiny itself as an insult, when a camera pointed at a pothole is met with a raised hand instead of an answer, something fundamental has broken.
The minister’s defenders will point to provocation . Allegations of political theatre, disputes over an opposition MLA’s motives, claims of abuse hurled before the slap landed. Perhaps some of that is true. None of it matters. Provocation is not a legal defense for assault, and it is certainly not a moral one for a public official. If a minister cannot control himself when a citizen questions his work, he has disqualified himself from holding public office . FULL STOP.
There is no version of democratic accountability in which “he made me angry” justifies physical violence by the state’s representative against the state’s employer: the people.
What should happen next is not complicated. An FIR has been filed. Good, let the law take its course without political interference from either side. But legal process alone is not enough. A party that claims to represent good governance cannot simply wait out the news cycle and hope the video stops trending. If BJP’s Delhi leadership has any seriousness about accountability, this minister should be stripped of his portfolio pending investigation . Not because guilt is settled, but because the the conduct alone are disqualifying for someone who represents public trust.
Because here is the uncomfortable truth: incidents like this don’t happen in isolation. They happen when those in power start believing they are unremovable . That no election, no protest, no viral video will actually cost them anything. That belief, once it sets in, doesn’t stay contained to one minister slapping one aide. It curdles into a broader culture where dissent is met with force rather than dialogue : a lathi here, a muted mic there, a slap in between.
Citizens are not subjects. A phone camera is not a crime. And no one , not a minister, not a party, not a government riding high on electoral numbers , is above being told no.
Reference
1.https://x.com/RahulGandhi/status/2104225714132353054
2.https://www.theweek.in/news/india/2026/09/27/aap-vs-bjp-viral-video-shows-delhi-minister-parvesh-verma-slapping-youth.html
3.https://www.latestly.com/india/news/delhi-minister-parvesh-verma-slaps-man-during-road-inspection-video-goes-viral-7622706.html
4.https://www.newsbytesapp.com/news/politics/delhi-minister-slaps-man-during-road-inspection/story
