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On last day of campaigning for Gujarat Assembly polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is first passenger in sea-plane ride from Sabarmati Riverfront to Dharoi Dam

Hours before campaigning was scheduled to end for the second phase of the ongoing Gujarat Assembly polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi threw security protocols to the wind to take the first-ever seaplane ride from Ahmedabad’s Sabarmati Riverfront to Dharoi Dam in Mehsana district. Both Ahmedabad and Mehsana are scheduled to go to polls on December 14.

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Modi claimed that he decided to take the seaplane to Dharoi Dam – and then back to the Sabarmati Riverfront – because the Ahmedabad police had denied him permission to carry out a road-show in the city as part of his poll campaign for the BJP. On Monday, he had announced at an election rally: “Tomorrow for the first time in the history of the country a seaplane will land on the Sabarmati river. I will go to Ambaji in the sea-plane after landing in Dharoi dam and come back (sic)… Our party had planned my road show tomorrow. However, the administration has not given permission and I had time so I decided to go to Ambaji in the sea-plane.”

The Prime Minister had added: “We cannot have airports everywhere, so our government has planned to have these sea-planes.”

Of course, the Prime Minister made a slight exaggeration, or at least a misrepresentation, by claiming that this was “for the first time in the history of the country that a seaplane will land on the Sabarmati River.” Union ministers Nitin Gadkari and Ashok Gajapathi Raju had already beaten Modi to enjoy the first seaplane ride of the country at least three days earlier. Gadkari, the Union minister for surface transport who is said to be the brain behind the seaplane project, had even posted on Twitter his photographs taken on-board the seaplane operated by SpiceJet.

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While the Prime Minister certainly would have thought that his seaplane adventure would make for good publicity, his critics didn’t seem to share the same view.

Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah alleged that the Prime Minister, a Z+ category security protectee, had broken security protocol by flying in a single-engine aircraft.

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Prime Minister also drew flak from Dalit leader and independent candidate from Gujarat’s Vadgam constituency, Jignesh Mevani while Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti leader Hardik Patel also took a jibe at him, wondering if the seaplane can be used by farmers in the state to air-drop 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Both Jignesh Mevani and Hardik Patel have been strident in their criticism of the BJP and Narendra Modi. The duo have also asked their followers – the Dalits and Patidars – to vote out the BJP and instead support the Congress in Gujarat. Mevani is contesting the polls as an independent candidate, with support from the Congress and several other Opposition parties.

Never one to miss the chance of taking a swipe at Narendra Modi, RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav too had a one-liner for the Prime Minister’s seaplane sojourn – one that was laced with political innuendo.

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While the taunts and digs by Hardik Patel, Jignesh Mevani and Lalu Prasad were veiled, newly elected Congress president Rahul Gandhi was more scathing and direct in his attack at the Prime Minister’s seaplane ride.

Addressing reporters in Ahmedabad, Rahul Gandhi – who was on Monday declared president of the Congress party, a charge that he will formally take over from his mother Sonia Gandhi on December 16 – said: “Elections are in Gujarat and that should remain the main agenda. If Modi ji wants to fly in a seaplane… there is no problem with that but it is a distraction. The real question is what has been done for the people of Gujarat in the last 22 years. Why don’t they talk about development anymore?”

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