Sena MP travels to Delhi by car

Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad decided to travel by road to Delhi after Air India twice cancelled his tickets from Mumbai on Wednesday.

The state carrier was one of six airlines that banned Gaikwad for his slipper assault on an Air India duty manager last week. The 56-year-old Osmanabad MP is coming to Delhi to attend the ongoing Parliament session.

“Gaikwad is reaching Delhi by car today but will not attend the day’s proceedings of the Lok Sabha,” said sources close to him. But he will attend tomorrow’s session if his party leadership allows him to do so, the sources added.

Gaikwad, who has been barred by all Indian airlines from flying on their aircraft, targeted Air India and accused it of “cheating people and giving poor service”. In a statement released on Wednesday, he contended that his grouse was over the “inefficiency and bad service” provided by the carrier and not for being denied a business class seat for which he held an open ticket.

“The media is showing only one-sided version of Air India, which is misleading...,” Gaikwad said.

“On the Pune-New Delhi flight that day, I had the business class ticket and I was also issued a business class boarding pass. Until I boarded... nobody informed me that there was no business class on that flight,” he said.

Gaikwad said he had requested the airlines staff to let him meet some senior officials and that he would sit in the aircraft till then. “Suddenly, one person named Sukumar rushed inside in a huff, created a ruckus shouting, ‘Who is this MP, I don’t know any MP’... ‘I even said -- you are a senior person, remain calm and don’t raise your blood pressure’ to him,” the MP said.