NEW DELHI: Over 200 workers of the AAP and BJP were detained on Friday afternoon while they were marching towards each other’s offices at Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg here, police said.The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had planned its demonstration against “cheating” in the mayoral elections in front of the BJP headquarters, and the BJP its protest over “corruption” in the Arvind Kejriwal government in front of the AAP office.”We had already made elaborate arrangements with multi-layered barricades to stop the workers to reach to the party offices. About 150 workers from AAP and 60 from BJP have been detained and taken to separate police stations in buses,” an official said.The AAP march began soon after Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann left the protest site, announcing peaceful protests to their party workers. They asked them to stop where the Delhi police stopped them.The BJP’s protest was led by its Delhi unit head, Virendra Sachdeva.But workers and leaders of both parties could not reach their planned protest sites, covering a distance of hardly 800 metres, owing to a wall of barricades and police personnel on the Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya (DDU) Marg.An official said over 1,000 personnel were deployed around ITO and DDU Marg. Two paramilitary companies comprising women staff and personnel from Delhi Police’s armed unit were deployed at the DDU Marg with anti-riot gear and baton to control the protestors, the official said.The protestors were detained at around 1.45 pm and were taken to separate police stations, where they will be released after a few hours, a police officer said.
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