Pawan Khera apologises for old 'tapasya' tweet after Rahul loses Lok Sabha seat

Congress leader Pawan Khera on Sunday apologised for a veiled tweet lamenting the snub by the party for a Rajya Sabha seat last year, saying he did so in 'selfishness' but has realised his mistake drawing inspiration from Rahul Gandhi who "shuns power" and continues his 'tapasya'.

Addressing a gathering at the day-long protest at Rajghat against Rahul Gandhi's disqualification from Lok Sabha, Pawan Khera, Congress's media and publicity department head, said, "If you try to murder democracy, Rahul Gandhi will speak, be it from inside Parliament or outside it." "You (Bharatiya Janata Party) are afraid when Rahul Gandhi takes the name of Adani, you will shiver when he will do so on the streets," he said.

Rahul Gandhi belongs to the family that showed the country the way, Khera said.

Referring to his tweet on May 29 last year after his name did not figure in a list of party's Rajya Sabha nominees, Khera said, "I want to apologise to all of you, to my leadership that in selfishness, when I did not get a Rajya Sabha berth, I wrote that shayad meri tapasya mein kuch kami reh gayi. Now I see Rahul Gandhi that he shuns power and still continues his tapasya, what could be bigger than that."

"I apologise to all of you today. I have got inspiration from Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi. It is time to fight, to raise one's voice, power comes or doesn't, we will fight and win," Khera told the gathering with party chief Mallikarjun Kharge and other senior leaders on the dais.

Khera was at the centre of a deplaning row recently when he was arrested after being deplaned from an aircraft and arrested for remarks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Gandhi was on Thursday sentenced to two years in jail by a Surat court in a 2019 criminal defamation case over his "why all thieves have Modi surname" remark. He was subsequently disqualified from Lok Sabha.