This MP Just Had A Bad Air Day!

How Osmanabad’s Shiv Sena MP benefits from the controversies surrounding him.

- Prachi Pinglay-Plumber

That his victory margin of two lakh votes over NCP’s Padamsinh Patil in the Lok Sabha polls would boost his confidence was obvious. But that power would make him impervious to basic rules of decency was perhaps not expected. Ravindra Gaikwad, Shiv Sena MP from Osmanabad in arid Marathwada, has drawn flak on social media for thrashing a senior air India official and subsequently put on the no-fly lists of six airlines. But Gaikwad remains unrepentant—in fact, emboldened with his party supporting him to the hilt. they have not only urged for the ban to go, but the Sena even contemplates a privilege motion against air India.

“I am not surprised by Gaikwad’s attitude,” says an NCP MP. “He has a strong sense of entitlement, so he must have been convinced he has done nothing wrong. He loves the fact that he has the power to scare people and make them kowtow before him.” In 2014, Gaikwad was one of the 11 Sena MPs who had force-fed a Muslim catering worker of Delhi’s Maharashtra Sadan during Ramzan. The Osmanabad MP had later claimed he was trying to stop the fight.