BENGALURU: More than 20 Congress legislators and three senior cabinet ministers who attended a rally against ‘Vote Chori’ in New Delhi on Sunday, were stranded in a Belagavi-bound aircraft for more than five hours on Monday morning, due to heavy fog. The IndiGo flight was to leave the national capital at 5.50am.
The legislators on board the delayed Delhi-Belagavi flight missed the session that paid condolences to veteran Congress leader and Davanagere South MLA Shamanur Shivashankrappa, who passed away on Sunday evening in Bengaluru. They were returning to Belagavi to attend the ongoing winter legislature session. Medical Education Minister Sharan Prakash Patil, Law Minister HK Patil and Women and Child Welfare Minister Laxmi Hebbalkar, KPCC Working President Saleem Ahmed and others were on the flight.
Saleem Ahmed told The New Indian Express they had left their rooms at Karnataka Bhavan in New Delhi by 3.30am. “We had boarded the aircraft which was to take off at 5.50am, and the door was closed. Then there was an announcement that it would be delayed by one hour.
Since there was heavy fog, all flights were stranded. By the time the fog cleared and our flight could move, it was 10.15am, and we reached Belagavi at 12.30pm. We couldn’t attend the session when the Houses paid tributes to Shamanur Shivashankarappa,’’ he said. After landing at Belgavi, they reached Davanagere by road.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had returned to Bengaluru on Sunday night. Deputy CM DK Shivakumar, who took a special flight from Delhi at 11am, landed at HAL Airport in Bengaluru at 1.30pm, and took a helicopter to Davanagere to attend the funeral.