Authorities assure additional flights to Delhi, Chandigarh today
TSEWANG RIGZIN
LEH: Over 200 passengers stranded at Kushok Bakula Rimpochee (KGB) Airport in Leh shall be airlifted by additional flights to Delhi and Chandigarh from Wednesday.
This was assured by airport authorities after the irate stranded passengers locked the Director Airport Authority Leh, Sonam Norbu and Station Manager (SM) Air India (AI), Mahavir Kumar and Airport Manager AI, G.S Rana for about five hours at KGB Airport. Mahavir Kumar fainted and was shifted to hospital.
The agitated passengers expressed resentment against the airport authorities over the failure to manage alternative flights or hotel accommodation after the flights were cancelled due to inclement weather conditions for the last some days.
Agitated passengers even refused to accept boarding cards being issued by the concerned airlines. Later, Deputy Commissioner Leh Prassana ordering the expunction.
On the second occasion, Speaker said he would check the records and see if there was anything objectionable. On the third occasion, he claimed that he had not expunged anything from CM’s speech. He, however, added that Chief Minister herself needed to make her purported statement clear. Till midnight on Tuesday, she didn’t.
Even as a barrage of news stories asserted that Speaker’s action had triggered a storm in the coalition, mediapersons did not receive any clarification or official press release on this development either from Assembly Secretariat or from Department of Information of the State Government. Well-placed political sources disclosed to STATE TIMES that a section of the BJP high command was “pretty unhappy” over Mufti’s label of “anti-nationals” on her coalition partners. Without speaking to Ms Mufti, important BJP leaders at the Centre established contact with the State party leaders and asked them to seek a clarification from Chief Minister. They made clear that Mufti should withdraw her phrase of “anti-nationals” that had made BJP’s position awkward in several States preparing for Assembly elections.
However, Mufti, according to sources, declined to make any statement or clarification pleading that it would erode her credibility and make the already hostile ground harder in the Valley. “We can’t be seen as making surrender after surrender to the BJP. We are already in the eye of a storm and the Panchayat and Lok Sabha by-elections in Kashmir are not far away”, said a senior BJP leader.
With no clarification pouring in from Department of Information, the PDP leader claimed to STATE TIMES that today’s Cabinet meeting was cancelled only because of the Speaker’s “uncharitable action” and the BJP building a stand for abrogation of Article 370. He said that notwithstanding the discomfiture, some leaders in both the parties were in favour of playing down today’s developments. “We are told that the BJP has barred its vociferous MLAs, including Ravinder Raina and Rajeev Jasrotia from making any statement to the Press. Towards the last moments of Tuesday’s mayhem, Speaker came out with the third statement. This time around he claimed that he had not ordered any expunction of CM’s speech. “Let her make a clarification”, Speaker said. However, rather than going to the Assembly, Chief Minister, who was in her office, drove straight to PDP’s Jammu office in Gandhi Nagar to attend a party function. The problem for the coalition is that both, Mufti’s speech as well as Speaker’s verbal order over Jasrotia’s demand, have been recorded on over 30 cameras. Reports indicate that the Opposition would again on Wednesday rake up the issue and press hard for PDP’s and BJP’s clarifications.
