Senior Congress leader Pawan Khera detained at Delhi airport days after ‘Gautamdas’ remark

Before the detention, Khera was asked to get off a Raipur-bound flight, prompting protests by his party colleagues on the tarmac.

Congress leader Pawan Khera | ANI file photo

New Delhi: Congress leader Pawan Khera was asked to get off a plane in Delhi on Thursday leading to rare protests on the tarmac by his colleagues.

After a while, Khera was detained by the Assam Police, the party said.

पवन खेड़ा जी को असम पुलिस गिरफ्तार करके ले जा रही है।

उन्होंने कौन सा ऐसा जुर्म किया है कि उन्हें गिरफ्तार किया गया?

ये तानाशाही नहीं तो और क्या है?

: @SupriyaShrinate जी pic.twitter.com/PqUVYG0QKK

— Congress (@INCIndia) February 23, 2023

Khera and other Congress leaders were on their way to attend the Congress’s 85th plenary in Chhattisgarh capital Raipur.

Khera later said: “I was told they wanted to see my luggage. I said I don’t have anything except a handbag. When I came down from the aircraft, I was told I can’t go and that the DCP (Deputy Commissioner of Police) would come. I don’t know why I am being stopped.”

The Delhi Police said Khera was stopped from taking off on the request of the Assam Police, which apparently had registered an FIR against him.

Assam Police spokesperson Prasanta Kumar Bhuyan later clarified that a case had been registered against Pawan Khera at the Haflong police station in the state’s Dima Hasao district. “A team of the Assam police left for Delhi to take remand of Pawan Khera in connection with the case,” Bhuyan was quoted by news agency ANI.

Another senior leader K.C. Venugopal questioned this action on his colleague, saying: “Using a flimsy FIR to restrict his movement and silence him is a shameful, unacceptable act.”

Modi govt is acting like a bunch of goons by deplaning @Pawankhera ji from the Delhi-Raipur flight and preventing him from joining the AICC Plenary.

Using a flimsy FIR to restrict his movement & silence him is a shameful, unacceptable act. The entire party stands with Pawan ji. pic.twitter.com/mKVeuRGnfR

— K C Venugopal (@kcvenugopalmp) February 23, 2023

The loud protests on the tarmac, however, did not hamper the movement of flights, Delhi Police sources said, though the Raipur-bound Indigo flight Khera was to travel on did ultimately not take off. Passengers were accommodated in another flight, the airlines said.

Following the action, the Congress tweeted: “First ED was sent to Chhattisgarh. Now, Pawan Khera who was going to attend the Congress session was stopped from boarding the flight. This dictatorship will not be tolerated at all. We will fight and win.”

#WATCH | "First ED was sent to Chhattisgarh. Now, Pawan Khera who was going to attend the Congress session was stopped from boarding the flight. This dictatorship will not be tolerated at all. We will fight and win," tweets Congress Party

(Source: Congress) pic.twitter.com/xNIMF2zPXd

— ANI (@ANI) February 23, 2023

The ED on Monday had conducted raids at more than a dozen locations in Chhattisgarh, including at the premises linked to state Congress leaders as part of an ongoing probe into the alleged coal levy scam.

Khera has been at the cross hairs of the BJP for apparently mocking Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s name in a press conference last week.

Attacking the government over the Hindenburg-Gautam Adani row, Khera said when a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) could be set up by former Prime Ministers PV Narasimha Rao and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, “what is the problem of Narendra Gautamdas, sorry… Narendra Damodardas Modi”?

He was seen in a video asking if the PM’s middle name was “Gautamdas” or “Damodardas” – his father’s name — and was told the correct name.

Khera then quipped: “Name is Damodardas but deeds are of Gautamdas.” With the ensuing furore over his remarks, Khera later said in a tweet that he got confused.

“I genuinely got confused whether it is Damodardas or Gautam Das…,” Khera later said in a tweet.

Khera’s verbal fumbling resulted in an immediate FIR in Lucknow, and sharp criticism from Assam chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. Sarma tweeted Monday: “Make no mistake — pathetic remarks by courtier Pawan Khera on PM’s father have blessings of the top levels of Congress, which is full of entitlement and disdain against a person of humble origins being PM. India will not forget or forgive these horrible remarks of Congressmen.”