Party leaders say there is little chance that internal action will be taken against the MP who assaulted an Air India staffer
His brazen act of assaulting an Air India employee and justifying it on camera may have shocked the nation, but the Shiv Sena is standing by its Lok Sabha MP Ravindra Gaikwad. Shiv Sena leaders said there was little chance that the party would take action against Gaikwad, who had abused and assaulted an employee of the national flagship carrier last week.
While the central leadership of the Shiv Sena, a party known for its use of strong-arm tactics, claimed Gaikwad was being made a fall guy for standing up to “misbehaviour” by the airline’s staff, functionaries in the MP’s district have called for a one-day bandh to protest the “injustice” against their leader.
“Why? What crime has he committed?” questioned senior Shiv Sena leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut when asked if the party would take action against Gaikwad. “(Shiv Sena party president) Uddhavji (Thackeray) may have spoken to him on the phone and call him when he has the time. Is he a terrorist? Has he been involved in corruption or an irrigation or land scam or a murder? The police have lodged an FIR against him and they will take action,” added Raut, who claimed that the outrage against their party MP seemed to be premeditated.
Known as “Ravi Sir” among his constituents, Gaikwad, a former lecturer of commerce at a college in Omerga, had abused and assaulted the Air India duty manager for not being able to fly in the business class despite boarding an all-economy Pune-New Delhi flight.
“Like the police will take action against him, they must also lodge an FIR on the corruption in Air India. Air India has been looted for the past few years and has been bleeding losses. The people responsible for this mess must be blacklisted from flying in Air India,” demanded Raut.
After the assault, Air India and other airlines had blacklisted Gaikwad and put him on a no-fly list, forcing him to take a train from Delhi to Mumbai. However, Gaikwad, who had admitted to have assaulted the Air India staffer with a slipper “25 times”, had alighted from the August Kranti Express at Vapi, but has not been seen in his constituency located in Maharashtra’s dust bowl of Marathwada. Though it was rumoured that Gaikwad may be in Pune, attempts to contact him or his son proved futile.
Raut, however, added that the Shiv Sena did not support Gaikwad’s act. “The party has never supported the assault. This is not part of the party’s agenda,” he stated.
“The party is firmly with Ravi Gaikwad,” said another Shiv Sena source, pointing to reports that Gaikwad was courteous to the crew during the flight but had reacted in the course of his conversation with the duty manager over his grouse.
Meanwhile, Shiv Sena functionaries in Osmanabad announced a bandh on Monday to support their MP and protest the treatment meted out to him. “We have called for a one-day Osmanabad bandh to protest this injustice,” said Sena deputy district chief Basavraj Varnale. Gaikwad, a two-term MLA from the Omerga constituency, had defeated local NCP heavyweight and former minister Dr Padamsinh Patil in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections after losing narrowly to him in 2009.
The MP had also found himself in the eye of a storm earlier as part of a group of Sena MPs who tried to force-feed a Muslim employee at the Maharashtra Sadan in Delhi in 2014 over the poor quality of food served in the canteen.
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 "Ravindra Gaikwad")
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