In a shocking incident, senior Congress leader and party spokesperson Pawan Khera was deboarded and arrested by Assam Police. The reason was that Pawan Khera in a press conference had mistakenly called Prime Minister Modi, Narendra Gautam Das. Subsequently, FIRs were filed by BJP leaders in Uttar Pradesh and Assam for allegedly insulting the PM by linking the PM’s father’s name with that of Gautam Adani.
The Supreme Court found the reason too flimsy for keeping Pawan Khera jailed and directed a Delhi Court to grant interim bail to the Congress leader. The apex court also issued a notice to Assam, and Uttar Pradesh Police to club all the FIRs against Khera.
Pawan Khera on Thursday morning was boarding an Indigo flight from Delhi to Raipur to attend the AICC Plenary Session that is being held in Chhattisgarh. However, before the plane could take off he was deboarded and subsequently arrested for insulting the PM.
The incident shocked the whole opposition. The Congress has called it a highly undemocratic action taken by the Modi government to intimidate the opposition. Supriya Shrinate, the National Spokesperson of the Congress was with Pawan Khera when he was arrested by Assam Police. She blasted the Assam Police for such undemocratic action and for infringing on the fundamental rights of a person.
We have a video clip of the incident when Pawan Khera mistakenly called Prime Minister Narendra Gautam Das. It was for the viewers to judge how grave a crime did Pawan Khera commit that it required him to be jailed. On Twitter, netizens were found coming in support of Pawan Khera. Most of them term the action by the Modi government as highly dictatorial.
BJP was furious after the apparent mistake by Pawan Khera. It alleges that the Congress leader tried to infer that Narendra Modi is the father of the Gujarati billionaire Gautam Adani. Gautam Adani is himself in the midst of controversies these days after a US hedge fund firm Hindenburg accused the tycoon of stock price manipulation and accounting fraud schemes. Since then the Adani group of companies have lost 60% of their value.
Congress leader and Wayanad MP Rahul Gandhi has relentlessly attacked the Modi government for sheltering the billionaire from investigative agencies and has also alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been touring foreign countries to get projects for Adani.
