Tamil Nadu Electricity Minister Senthil Balaji accused state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president K Annamalai of blatantly lying on the issue of BJP MP Tejasvi Surya opening a plane's emergency exit door. "I heard that he said that Tejasvi Surya only placed his hand and that the door did not open. The emergency exit is on both sides and people sitting next to it do rest their hands on it. How is it that the door opened this time? He [Annamalai] blatantly lied that the flight was delayed by only 30 minutes," he said.
Senthil Balaji said that while Annamalai had denied Tejasvi Surya opened the emergency exit door, Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia accepted that he had opened the door and had apologised to the IndiGo airline. Tejasvi Surya, who is also the national President of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, was travelling with Annamalai to Tiruchirapalli from Chennai. The incident is purported to have taken place during boarding of the IndiGo plane.
IndiGo had, in a statement, said that its flight 6E 7339 from Chennai to Tiruchirapalli on December 10, was delayed by more than two hours after a passenger had accidentally opened the emergency exit door while the flight was boarding passengers and when the plane was on the tarmac.
Senthil Balaji said that the BJP state chief should accept the reality and apologise before the people if some mistake had happened. Annamalai and Senthil Balaji had earlier locked horns over the former wearing a watch worth Rs 5 lakh.