04 December,2010 06:30 AM IST | | A Correspondent
"We have a situation here," announced the pilot of the Bangalore-Mumbai-Nagpur JetLite flight minutes before landing at the Nagpur airport lastu00a0 evening.
He said the plane was just 15 km away, but there were more than 10 aircraft circling the Orange City's skies, desperate to land.
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The pilot said the aircraft had very little fuel left, and if it were not allowed to land soon, it would have to fly to Hyderabad for re-fuelling.
Gujarat CM Narendra Modi congratulates the happy couple. Nitin Gadkari is congratulated by MNS Chief Raj Thackeray. Vijay Mallya, Amar Singh, Nitin Gadkari and Jaya Prada pose for a photo-op
On the flight were mainly wedding guests including builder Niranjan Hiranandani and lawyer Mahesh Jethmalani.
After the minor heart attack for passengers, there was relief. The flight landed safely in Nagpur.
So, what made Nagpur airport suddenly busier than a Newark or a Heathrow? It was BJP president Nitin Gadkari's son's big, fat, Indian wedding reception.
The airport that handles 12 flights a day was swamped with 47 flights yesterday 35 private jets ferrying the rich and the powerful of Indian politics, industry, media and entertainment.
After landing, these planes were guided to the parking bays by 'follow-me' cars, which led to the aircraft taking more time to exit the runway and incoming flights ending up burning more fuel.
Hotels, which run at 50-60 per cent occupancy, were fully booked, with long waiting lists running. Rented cars did four times the number of shuttles they usually do.
A few thousands attended the wedding reception, hundreds of police personnel painted the landscape in khaki. A three-tier cordon of over 9,000 policemen and 1,200 officers reportedly guarded the city.
A wedding in a big politician or industrialist's family can really change the day or week in the life of a small city like Nagpur.
Almost the entire BJP brass was present at the resplendent wedding sets of the Vidarbha Cricket Association grounds Advani, Narendra Modi, Yeddyurappa, Shivraj Chauhan, Raman Singh and other central and state leaders.
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Maharashtra CM Prithviraj Chavan, Congress leader Narayan Rane and a host of industrialists including Anil Ambani were there too, along with BJP celebs Hema Malini, Shatrughan Sinha, Smriti Irani and others from Bollywood, like Madhur Bhandarkar.
Centre of attention
Gadkari was cheerful and smiling in a dark red sherwani, while his newly-wed businessman son Nikhil and the bride, Rutuja, who's a postgraduate in Sanskrit, patiently endured the affection and attention of thousands.
The food was vegetarian, with counters for snacks like tikki, ragda patties, dosa and suchlike, a main course of north Indian paneer makhani, pulao etc and a desserts table.
Senior BJP leaders have been camping here for the last three days to oversee the arrangements. It's been almost like the elections this time with a happy result.
