Gadkari paid for his trip: Uttarakhand

BJP president Nitin Gadkari paid for the private helicopters hired to take him and his family, Uttarkhand government said a day after one of the choppers crashed in jungles after the Gadkai family got down at the Dehradun airport after arriving from Badrinath. HT reports.

BJP president Nitin Gadkari paid for the private helicopters hired to take him and his family, Uttarkhand government said a day after one of the choppers crashed in jungles after the Gadkai family got down at the Dehradun airport after arriving from Badrinath.

HT Image

Refuting allegations by the Congress, Uttarakhand government official Devendra Bhasin said Gadkari and his family bore the entire expenditure of their 'chardham' pilgrimage in the state.

Gadkari and his family

paid the rent for the helicopters used by them and they also met the hotel expenses during their visit, chairman of state media advisory committee, Bhasin, said.

Congress MLA Kishore Upadhyay and Lok Sabha MP Vijay Bahuguna had accused the BJP government of spending the public money on visits of their leaders.

Bhasin said when a person undertakes a pilgrimage he spends his own money. "The Congress leaders should have inquired the matter first before levelling such allegations as they have hurt the personal faith of the BJP leader."

One of the choppers crashed in Ladpur jungles on Sunday barely hours after the group had got down at the airport, leaving the pilot and an engineer seriously injured.