Indore (Madhya Pradesh): Amid the political turmoil in Maharashtra, senior BJP leader and former Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis secretly passed twice through the city’s Devi Ahilyabai Holkar Airport while going to Vadodara from Mumbai and back by a chartered flight on Friday night. The whole visit was kept secret.
The city airport remained open for the entire night on Friday, while on other days flight operations remain suspended from 11 pm to 6 am for runway repairing work.
According to information received from the airport, Fadnavis reached the city airport from Mumbai at 10.45 pm on Friday night by a special aircraft. Here the plane was refuelled It left for Vadodara at 11 pm. After about 5 hours Fadanvis returned to the city from Vadodara at 4.40 am on Saturday and after refuelling the plane, he flew back for Mumbai at 4.55 am. No one got down or boarded the flight after landing on both the occasions.
The air route chosen to reach Vadodara from Mumbai via the city is quite surprising because the aerial distance from Mumbai to Vadodara is about 400 km, but if one goes via Indore, it is 900 km.
Sources said that Fadnavis chose the circular route to keep his Gujarat visit a secret. As most of the staff at Mumbai airport belong to Kamgar Sena affiliated to Shiv Sena, if Fadnavis had flown directly to Vadodara, his trip wouldn't have remained a secret.
Sources said that information about Fadnavis's visit was received at the city airport only in the evening. The airport officials thought that someone from the city would come and meet him, so they were surprised when no one turned up.
