Now Reading: Ethanol protest leader Tehseen Poonawalla arrested after talks
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Ethanol protest leader Tehseen Poonawalla arrested after talks
Delhi Police detained Team Bharat activist Tehseen Poonawalla on Thursday, a day after he met Union Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri to discuss the ethanol-blended petrol programme. His Instagram account was also…
The Story in Brief
Delhi Police detained Team Bharat activist Tehseen Poonawalla on Thursday, a day after he met Union Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri to discuss the ethanol-blended petrol programme. His Instagram account was also suspended. The arrest came ahead of a planned protest against the government's hurried E20 rollout, following the Jantar Mantar clashes that forced Dharmendra Pradhan to resign as education minister. The Hans India reports that Poonawalla had thanked the minister for the meeting but later turned furious, accusing the government of an 'ethanol scam'.
The government is moving early to contain backlash over the ethanol programme, avoiding the missteps that escalated student protests recently. Poonawalla, who leads Team Bharat, said he would continue to expose the scam despite the arrest.
The Indian Opinion
Both sides are indulging in familiar scripts: the government paints Poonawalla as a disruptor, while he calls the arrest a muzzling of dissent. The real question is whether the E20 rollout was indeed rushed without adequate consultation, as alleged. That test will come when Delhi’s High Court hears a challenge, or when the petrol price at the pump shows the true cost of blending. Until then, neither arrest nor Instagram suspension settles the policy dispute.
Source: thehansindia.com
This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
