Several AAP and BJP leaders were detained here on Tuesday after police prevented them from carrying out protest marches.

AAP leaders and workers had taken to the streets against Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest and tried to march towards Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s residence on Lok Kalyan Marg.

AAP MLA Somnath Bharti, Delhi Assembly deputy Speaker Rakhi Birla and Punjab minister Harjot Singh Bains were detained by the police as they gathered at Patel Chowk to march to the Prime Minister’s residence 4km away. The area falls under the New Delhi constituency from where the AAP has fielded Bharti for the Lok Sabha elections.

The police had beefed up security in several parts of the national capital.

In the evening Bharti tweeted from a police station in South West Delhi where he was held: “I am detained in the Police station: Sector 9, Dwarka for hours. I am the INDIA candidate from New Delhi Lok Sabha Constituency but am being denied a level playing field as I can’t attend my public meetings scheduled in advance. @ECISVEEP @SpokespersonECI you are neither responding to my messages nor taking action against BJP’s unconstitutional acts to botch and rig the Lok Sabha 2024 election.”

The AAP had complained to the Election Commission about the centrally controlled police for obstructing the road to their office after Kejriwal’s arrest last week in the liquor scam case.

The AAP has asked supporters to change their social media display pictures to that of Kejriwal behind bars with the slogan: “Modi’s biggest fear — Kejriwal”.

At the BJP protest march to demand Kejriwal’s resignation, the police used water cannons to disperse the protesters walking from Feroz Shah Kotla Ground to the Delhi Secretariat in central Delhi. BJP Delhi president Virendra Sachdeva was detained by the police.