Shashi Tharoor and other Congress leaders were briefly detained by the Kerala Police while they were protesting against demonetisation outside the Reserve Bank of India’s office in Thiruvananthapuram. Tharoor told ANI that they were “sitting on a peaceful dharna” when they were taken in by police.

The Thiruvananthapuram legislator has been one among several Congress leaders who have harshly criticised the Centre’s decision to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. Tharoor had said the demonetisation drive was implemented in an “astonishingly incompetent manner”. “The problem goes to such basic elements of planning such as not having enough currency before you spring this on the nation, when 86% of your currency would become illegal in three-and-a-quarter hours… This makes the government look amateurish,” he had said at an event in Delhi in December.