Bhubaneswar, Nov. 24: Ahead of BJP president Amit Shah's visit to the state capital tomorrow, tension gripped the city following the municipal corporation's "selective removal" of hoardings and posters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Shah.

As soon as the incident came to light, BJP workers seized vehicles of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation and detained officials. Later, they sat on a demonstration near Power House Square, close to the state secretariat and the police commissioner' office, bringing traffic to a halt. The stand-off had continued for five hours.

The problem worsened when the detained civic body officials showed the BJP workers the WhatsApp message from commissioner Krishan Kumar asking them to remove hoardings and posters in various parts of the city. "We were only carrying out his orders," said Pramod Jena, a detained corporation official.

The civic officials had apparently removed only the posters of Modi and Shah while sparing dozens of hoardings carrying chief minister Naveen Patnaik's photographs. The panchayati raj department had put up hoardings for the human chain organised yesterday.

BJP workers gathered at Power House Square from 1pm onwards bringing traffic to a standstill. "We will withdraw our agitation only after corporation commissioner Krishan Kumar comes to the spot and apologises. He should give an assurance that civic body officials will restore our posters and hoardings as they were," said party's general secretary Bhrugu Buxipatra, adding that the party had also lodged an FIR against the mayor and the commissioner. Buxipatra alleged that the corporation removed the hoardings of the Prime Minister on the chief minister's instructions.

As the issue threatened to turn into a law and order problem with BJP workers burning tyres, police tried to convince the commissioner to resolve the issue. Though the commissioner did not turn up, police commissioner Y.B. Khurania reached the spot and assured the BJP workers that the party posters and hoardings removed by the civic body would be put back where they were.

Kumar said: "They had not taken permission from the corporation to put up the posters and hoardings. According to the new guidelines from November 1 onwards, organisers of events need to take permission from the civic body to put up posters and hoardings."

The BJP is pulling out all stops to make tomorrow's Amit Shah rally a success to motivate cadres ahead of the panchayat polls.

The Pradesh Congress Committee today sharpened its attack on the BJP. Its president Prasad Harichandan put five questions to Shah which, he hoped, he would answer while addressing the rally.

Prasad sought to know, among other things, whether industrialists, including Ambani and Adani, were in the know about the NDA government's demonetisation move and why loans given to industrialists had been waived off. He said Shah should tell people whether the NDA government would waive the loans of farmers.