File photo: Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis addresses the media in Nagpur. (Press Trust of India)
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had earlier this week issued an unequivocal denial that his entourage delayed a flight to New York by an hour. NDTV has now accessed an internal Air India memo that records the delay and discloses that when the chief minister's advise was sought, he "responded that he would not travel without his delegation."
Early Monday morning, Mr Fadnavis, accompanied by nine people, left for the US on an official trip. The media - including NDTV - reported that his principal secretary Praveen Pardeshi, had reported to the airport without an old passport with the US visa issued to him.
The flight was then held up for an hour till the passport was delivered to him.
Amid the flurry of media reports and criticism from the Opposition, Mr Fadnavis had tweeted
Air India also tweeted that the delay was caused by technical problems.
The report sent by Air India's Mumbai office on the delay, however, says that when Mr Pardeshi realised that he had the wrong passport with him, he called for the correct one and was allowed to proceed with a boarding pass up to the boarding gate.
But since the passport had not reached him by then, Mr Pardeshi was stopped from boarding and Mr Fadnavis' advise was sought, the document says.
The memo notes that with the Chief Minister refusing to travel without his delegation, "offloading of the entire delegation team of 8 pax alongwith 14 pcs of baggage from two different containers and a new load sheet which would have to be prepared would've further delayed the departure."
It says that "whilst the offloading process was on" Mr Pardeshi's passport reached the boarding gate.
The controversy was revisited today when reports surfaced that another Air India flight was delayed last week for about an hour and the family of a bureaucrat was taken off
to accommodate Union minister Kiren Rijiju and Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh, both, like Mr Fadnavis, from the BJP.
"VIP Maharajas of BJP delaying flights, deboarding passengers. Arrogance? Yes. Would PM break his silence?" tweeted the Congress' Digvijaya Singh.