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Harish Gupta
AHMEDABAD, SEPT 3: Union Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports Uma Bharti has done it again. But this time her tantrums caused a flutter in the Prime Minister's security establishment and at the airport here.
Uma Bharti, according to information, forced the pilot of her helicopter to land at the Ahemdabad airport almost at the same time on Thursday evening when the Special IAF aircraft carrying the Prime Minister was also to land. This was in complete violation of Blue Book rules and also of instructions issued by the airport authorities.
Though the 4-seater helicopter belonging to Punj Llyods carrying Uma Bharti had landed at the Gandhinagar helipad in view of PM's convoy arriving at the Ahemdabad airport, the fire-brand BJP leader refused to come out of the chopper.
She gave a dressing down to the pilot and firmly told him to take her chopper to the Ahemdabad. Pleadings by the pilot that no flying machine is permitted in the vicinity within one hour of PM's convoy movement failed to impress the juniorminister.
She forced the pilot to take off again and landed at the airport despite instructions to the contrary by the authorities. Her argument was that if Vajpayee is going to address rally at University Grounds for Union Home Minister L K Advani so was she.
Her another argument was that the road journey from Gandhinagar to the rally ground was almost double and she would not be able to make it to the rally and catch her next connecting flight.
Union Home Minister L K Advani also landed by a regular Indian Airlines scheduled flight and received the PM at the airport.
When contacted pilot Srivastava was too scared to talk about the incident to the author who was also at the airport.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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