Assam police on Thursday arrested senior Congress leader Pawan Khera from the Delhi airport in connection with an FIR lodged against him for his alleged objectionable remarks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Khera, who was en route to Raipur to attend the party’s plenary session, was earlier deplaned from an IndiGo flight, which was followed by a political slugfest between Congress and Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP).
Later, the Supreme Court ordered the grant of interim bail to the Congress leader till February 28 and agreed to club all FIRs against him. The apex court, which listed the matter for hearing on February 27, also sought responses from Assam and Uttar Pradesh over Khera’s plea to club the multiple FIRs filed against him.
Who Is Pawan Khera| In 10 Points
▶Pawan Khera began his political career as a Youth Congress activist in Rajasthan’s Udaipur in the 1980s.
▶However, he left the party after former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in the year 1991.
▶He reengaged with the party again in 1998 and joined Sheila Dikshit who was preparing to lead the Congress as president of the party’s Delhi unit in the upcoming Assembly elections in the national capital.
▶After Dikshit won the polls, he became her political secretary and looked after her media and political affairs. Khera held the post for 15 years until Dikshit’s tenure ended in 2013.
▶From 2015 onwards, Khera emerged as Congress’s political face and has been representing the party in debates and discussions on television channels.
▶He was promoted as the party’s national spokesperson in 2018 by Congress’ then-president Rahul Gandhi.
▶Since then, he has been seen as a vocal critic of the ruling party, BJP, and has often spoken out against their policies and decisions.
▶A year later, Khera was made the convenor of a poll committee of the Congress before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
▶In May last year, 53-year-old Khera was in line among Congress leaders hoping to get a Rajya Sabha berth. However, he was overlooked by the party.
▶In June 2022, Congress appointed him Chairman of the Media & Publicity Department.
Khera’s Comment On PM Modi and BJP’s Objection
Khera while addressing a recent press conference to demand an investigation by a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) against the Adani Group misspelt PM’s name as “Narendra Gautamdas Modi.” He later clarified that he got confused.
PM’s Modi’s full name is Narendra Damodardas Modi, with the middle name Damodardas standing for his father’s name, a common practice in many parts of the country.
The BJP has termed it as an “insult to the Prime Minister and his father”.
BJP MLC Mukesh Sharma, who filed a complaint against Khera at Lucknow’s Hazratganj Kotwali police station, said Khera talked about the Prime Minister’s late father Damodar Das Mool Chand Modi and made unsavoury remarks.
“Khera mocked Modi by linking his father’s name with the name of father of Gautam Adani. He made sarcastic comments on Narendra Modi,” he added.
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