AAP protestors detained near Home Min's house; BJP protests against CM

NEW DELHI: Leaders and volunteers of the Aam Aadmi Party, who on Thursday gathered in front of Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh's residence to protest against the "casteist remarks" made by Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash during a meeting at the Chief Minister's residence earlier this week, were detained by cops.

Meanwhile, the Delhi unit Bharatiya Janata Party continued its protest in front the residences of the Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister.

Delhi Social Welfare Minister Rajendra Pal Gautam was detained as he was moving towards the Home Minister's residence, along with some AAP workers.

"The police detained us before we started the protest. As soon as I reached the spotm they detained me. Every party has the right to protest/ Then why this kind of behaviour with us," questioned Gautam.

Gautam was detained at the Tughlakabad Road police station along with others.

Responding to the incident, Delhi Police said that MLAs and workers of AAP had given a call to gherao and protest outside the Home Minister's residence at Akbar Road here.

As the area is under prohibitory orders of Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 89 persons including 14 women and 75 men, were detained under the Delhi Police Act around 12 pm.

Cops added that apart from Gautam, five other MLAs and six counsellors were detained.

The protest comes two days after AAP's Ambedkar Nagar legislator Ajay Dutt had filed a police complaint against the Chief Secretary for making 'casteist remarks' during a meeting at Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's residence on Monday night.

A party official said the protest was also called against the "biased inquiry" done by Delhi Police against their MLAs Amanatullah Khan and Prakash Jarwal, who were taken into judicial custody on Wednesday for allegedly assaulting the Chief Secretary.

Meanwhile, workers of the BJP across the city held protest demonstrations outside the offices and residences of AAP MLAs to protest against the "autocratic, anarchic and corrupt governance of the Kejriwal government, which has stalled development work and pushed the city into an administrative crisis, noted an official statement."

Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari said, "We can understand the anxiety of the Kejriwal government for running a false anti-corruption campaign, as its public image stands tainted with several ministers, including Satyendar Jain, involved in dubious financial deeds and relatives of the Chief Minister involved in bogus Bill scams."

The BJP MP from North East Delhi added that the Kejriwal government's proposed campaign, claiming 80 per cent end of corruption in Delhi, is the repeat of "what we saw in the first few months of 2015 when Kejriwal government had put up hoarding, claiming arrest of several corrupt employees, but later it was established that the figures of arrest were fudged."