Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener Arvind Kejriwal, along with senior leaders Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh, and Jasmine Shah, staged a street protest on Delhi’s Ferozeshah Road on Tuesday after being stopped by police. The protest occurred during a planned march toward Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s residence, organized by AAP to submit over 2.30 lakh public petitions collected from across the country against the Centre's E20 ethanol-blended petrol policy. Accompanied by around 100 party leaders and workers, Kejriwal sought to meet the Prime Minister to present public concerns regarding the fuel.
During the sit-in demonstration, Kejriwal alleged that the Modi government was forcibly imposing E20 fuel on Indian citizens under pressure from US President Donald Trump to import American ethanol. Comparing the situation to past student movements, he called for a mass agitation against the policy and urged the public to join the campaign. AAP leaders criticized the heavy security deployment, including police and Rapid Action Force personnel, questioning why barricades were erected when they merely intended to deliver petitions.
Delhi AAP president Saurabh Bharadwaj requested that an official from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) come to the protest site to accept the public petitions and discuss the issue. The Aam Aadmi Party maintains three primary demands regarding the fuel policy: providing petrol pump consumers with a choice between pure petrol and E20, reducing the retail price of E20 fuel below that of regular petrol, and capping overall petrol prices below ₹84 per liter.