Senior Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera was deplaned and arrested by India's Assam state police from Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport on Thursday.
He was set to fly to Raipur, the capital of Chhattisgarh state along with a Congress delegation to attend a plenary session of the party there. Congress workers who were at the airport at the time protested the police action and raised anti-government slogans.
Khera's arrest comes days after the federally governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) demanded action against him for his recent controversial remarks about Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
At a media briefing in Delhi, Khera claimed to have botched up the prime minister's name in what was an apparent dig at Modi for his alleged close ties with embattled business tycoon Gautam Adani, whose group is currently in the eye of a storm over allegations of stock manipulation by US short-seller Hindenburg Research.
"If Narasimha Rao could form a JPC (joint parliamentary committee), if Atal Bihari Vajpayee could form a JPC, then what problem does Narendra Gautam Das...sorry Damodardas...Modi have?" Khera had said.
The BJP alleged Khera not only mocked Prime Minister Modi, but also insulted his father by referring to him as Narendra Gautam Das instead of Narendra Damodardas. Notably, the name Gautam was in the context of the founder of Adani Group, while Damodardas was PM Modi's father.
"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," Assam state chief Himanta Biswa Sarma said in response to Khera's statement.
A first information report (FIR) was registered by a BJP politician, and Assam police arrested Khera based on the complaint.
Meanwhile, Congress, the main opposition party in the country, has criticized Khera's arrest, calling it a "shameful, unacceptable act."
"Modi government is acting like a bunch of goons by deplaning Pawan Khera from the Delhi-Raipur flight and preventing him from joining the AICC Plenary. Using a flimsy FIR to restrict his movement and silence him is a shameful, unacceptable act. The entire party stands with Pawan ji," Congress General Secretary K.C. Venugopal tweeted.
The airline, in turn, regretted the inconvenience caused due to such an incident.
"A passenger was deplaned by the police at the Delhi airport from Raipur-bound flight 6E 204. Some other passengers have also decided to deboard on their own accord. We are following the advice of the concerned authorities. The flight is delayed as of now and we regret the inconvenience caused to other passengers," IndiGo said in a statement.