When the DMK MP boarded his Indigo flight to Chennai, little did he know the pilot would be a fellow MP.
DMK’s Dayanidhi Maran, Member of Parliament from Chennai Central and Former Union Minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy took to Twitter to share a riveting incident that occurred in the former’s Chennai-bound flight.
Mr. Maran was seated in the first row of the Indigo flight from Delhi on July 13. As the crew announced the closure of the boarding procedures, a familiar voice reverberated in his ears. “So you are travelling in this flight as well!’’, said the Captain of the flight.
Mr. Maran nodded his head in bewilderment until the smiling eyes of the Captain gave his identity away. It was none other than BJP MP from Saran, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, who is a commercial pilot.
Incidentally, both Mr. Maran and Mr. Rudy are members of the Estimates Committee, which scrutinises the expenditure and utilisation of funds of various ministries.
Mr. Maran further wrote “How often does a sitting Member of Parliament captain a commercial flight? I’m sure I will be talking about this for a long time.”
In what seemed like a page from a short story, Mr. Maran embellished his post with a picture of the multi-hyphenate, standing tall against the backdrop of the cockpit.
Mr. Rudy too, cherished the experience and recalled his association with Mr. Maran's father. In a series of tweets in Tamil, Mr. Rudy hailed Mr. Dayanidhi Maran as a "successful aviation entrepreneur and a union minister."
Mr. Rudy, holds a mention in the Limca Book of Records for being the only parliamentarian to have flown a commercial aircraft.
Mr. Rudy served as Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship in the previous Narendra Modi government.
Mr. Rudy was the Cabinet colleague of Mr. Maran’s late father ‘Murasoli’ Maran. In the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, the senior Maran was Commerce Minister while Mr. Rudy was MoS (Independent Charge) Civil Aviation.
