Chandigarh: Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann was made to wait nearly three hours at Delhi airport and then handed a ₹50,000 challan, the Aam Aadmi Party alleged on Tuesday, calling it a deliberate act of humiliation.
AAP spokesperson Baltej Pannu, in a video statement, said Mann was returning from Paris when airport officials told him his luggage had not arrived or was still being checked. After nearly three hours, he said, officials approached the chief minister and told him they were under “tremendous pressure from above”. A challan of ₹50,000 followed.
Pannu said Mann had travelled to Paris on the directions of the Punjab and Haryana High Court to promote Punjab's products at what he called the world's second-largest food festival. He claimed the court had ordered that the chief minister be given due protocol, but the Consul General in Paris did not meet him.
The AAP spokesperson accused the Centre of repeatedly obstructing Mann's foreign visits, alleging that permission had been denied at least four times. He described the airport episode as evidence of an “anti-Punjab” stance and accused the Narendra Modi government of undermining the state's dignity.
There was no immediate response from the Union government or Delhi airport authorities to the allegations.
The claim lands in the middle of a bitter pre-poll fight in Punjab, where assembly elections are due early next year. The BJP has made the drug crisis its central plank, while the AAP has accused the Centre of using central agencies and administrative levers against the state government. Pannu said the Centre feared that Mann's overseas trips could help Punjab attract investment.