After repeated snubs by airlines, Shiv Sena hires chartered flight for Ravindra Gaikwad

NEW DELHI: In a political message to Air India, private carriers and the NDA government, the Shiv Sena chartered a flight for Ravindra Gaikwad to Delhi to enable him attend the ongoing session of Parliament.

The Sena MP was banned from flying by state-owned airlines and private carriers following his alleged manhandling of an Air India staff recently.

Having helped the MP “breach the air embargo” with the help of the “Sena leadership’s political will and resourcefulness,” as a party insider put it, Gaikwad will lead the Sena’s planned political offensive in the Lok Sabha on Thursday or Friday.


Sena MPs will insist that the Speaker allow Gaikwad to make a statement in the Lok Sabha to give his side of the story, which may include a denouncement of the attitude of Air India and private airlines, as well as the role of the Ministry of Civil Aviation, while demanding immediate revocation of his ban on boarding flights.

“Our MP, Ravindra Gaikwad, reached Delhi on Wednesday evening by air. He was accompanied by a couple of colleagues. The Sena leadership successfully arranged his flight to Delhi on a chartered flight. Those who think they can continuously insult our MP should take this as a clear message of the Sena leadership: That it will not take insults lying down and will fight it out on our terms,” said a party insider involved in the entire ‘flying operation’.

The Sena move followed the leadership’s assessment that airlines’ continuous prevention of his boarding the flight may have been the result of ‘political signal’ from certain quarters. While there was speculation that the private flight that Gaikwad used was arranged by party MP, industrialist Rajkumar Dhoot, Sena insiders said that the aircraft was not Dhoot’s but “arranged through one of our resources.”