Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann on Friday led an AAP protest outside the BJP central office in Delhi over alleged rigging of the recently held mayoral polls in Chandigarh.

A few hundred metres away, the BJP led by its state president Virendra Sachdeva staged a protest outside the AAP office against “corruption”.

Despite having secured a majority in the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation, the AAP-Congress alliance lost the mayoral election to the BJP on Tuesday after eight votes were declared invalid by a returning officer linked to the BJP.

At the protest on Friday, Kejriwal raised the slogan: “Gali Gali mein shor hai, BJP vote chor hai.”

“BJP stole votes in the Chandigarh mayoral polls. These people are a threat to the democracy of the country. Even if we have to take to the streets to save democracy and the country, we will do so,” he said.

Mann said: “If the intention of the BJP people was good, this (result) would not have happened. The names of those who reached here in large numbers to give oxygen to the country’s democracy when it is in danger and is breathing its last will be written in the pages of history.”

Several AAP supporters, including MLAs, were detained in their constituencies and the entry points into the city were barricaded.

At the BJP protest, the party’s Delhi spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor said they would conduct a door-to-door campaign against the Kejriwal government, which is facing charges of corruption in its now-shelved liquor policy.

BJP workers raised slogans against Kejriwal and demanded his resignation.

“The Kejriwal government has become synonymous with corruption. Every day, a scam of the government is exposed before the people,” Sachdeva said.

The AAP dispensation is involved in scams related to liquor as well as drinking water, he alleged, adding that a scam has taken place in the Delhi Jal Board under the patronage of the Kejriwal government.

Addressing protesters, leader of the Opposition in the Delhi Assembly, Ramveer Singh Bidhuri, said Kejriwal would be put behind bars very soon like his former deputy Manish Sisodia.

Sisodia has been in jail since February last year in connection with the alleged Delhi excise policy scam.