Gopinath Munde's hectic 16 hours that ended in tragedy

NEW DELHI: A hectic 16 hours spent between Mumbai and Delhi ended in the early morning accident that claimed the life of Union minister Gopinath Munde.

Munde flew from Mumbai to Delhi on Monday evening only to attend the meeting of the Union council of ministers. He was on his way back to Delhi airport on Tuesday morning to board an early flight to be in his constituency Beed, where victory celebrations were lined up to toast the man who was a frontline contender for the post of chief ministership of Maharashtra.

Munde was to board a 7am flight from Delhi to Mumbai, where he was to attend a programme at the BJP office, and then a helicopter was to leave at 10.30am for Beed.

Since the Lok Sabha victory, Munde had a hectic schedule between Beed, Mumbai and Delhi. The added travel was as much on account his becoming a key minister in Narendra Modi's cabinet, as for the Maharashtra assembly elections in October-November.

Munde on Monday boarded the 2pm flight from Mumbai and landed at Delhi airport at 4pm, where he was handed a draft note on the ministry's 100-day agenda that he was to discuss with his secretaries later in his Krishi Bhavan office.

The minister reached his 21, Lodhi Estate residence at 4:50pm, reading the draft note on the way, washed himself and reached Krishi Bhavan for a meeting with secretaries at 5:30pm. He did a brief TV interview prior to the meeting. The minister ended the meeting at 5.45pm and left for the cabinet meeting scheduled for 6pm. The meeting went on till 9pm, after which he went home.

Munde had the secretary, drinking water & sanitation, waiting as he could not reach the secretaries' meeting earlier in office. That session went on till 10pm, after which Munde, sources said, had dinner and went to bed.

The next morning, aides told him to leave his residence at 6am for his 7am flight to Mumbai. Sources said Munde started at 6.15 and, minutes later, the accident took place at 6.22am.

Around 6:30, advance staff at the airport were nervous as there was no sight of the minister and requested the airlines to wait for sometime. They were informed at 6.40 that the minister had met with an accident and had been taken to AIIMS. The tickets were cancelled and the flight took off as scheduled.