AAP, BJP supporters clash in Delhi

New Delhi, March 5 :

Protests by AAP workers outside the BJP office against party chief Arvind Kejriwal’s detention in Gujarat snowballed into a clash when BJP activists allegedly pelted stones at them and the protestors retaliated.

The workers of both the parties pelted stones at each other after the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) “peaceful” protest at BJP’s headquarters in central Delhi turned ugly.

While both sides hurled chairs and sticks at each other, police intervened, using water cannons to disperse the crowd.

Angry AAP workers vandalised the BJP hoardings.

AAP leaders Shazia Ilmi, Ashutosh and Rajmohan Gandhi were at the protest side.

Ilmi told media persons that it was a peaceful protest but the BJP workers indulged in pelting stones at them.

BJP leaders blamed the AAP for the fracas.

“Do they believe in Maoism,” asked BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad while another spokesman Nirmala Sitharaman said: “No one should indulge in this kind of destructive politics. What’s happening is completely unwarranted, highly condemnable.”

The incident took place barely hours after Kejriwal, who began a four-day tour of Gujarat to check Chief Minister and BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s claims that the state was a model of development, was detained by police in a village in north Gujarat.

The former Delhi chief minister was released after 30 minutes.

(IANS)