Congress slams Modi government as IndiGo cancellations spark nationwide disruption

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday blamed the large-scale disruptions at IndiGo on what he called the Centre’s “monopoly model”, arguing that India needs fair competition instead of “match-fixing monopolies”.

With IndiGo cancelling nearly 1,000 flights on Friday, creating chaos at airports and leaving thousands of passengers stranded, Mr. Gandhi said ordinary travellers were paying the price for policy failures.

“IndiGo fiasco is the cost of this government’s monopoly model. Once again, it’s ordinary Indians who pay the price in delays, cancellations and helplessness,” the Leader of the Opposition said in a post on social media platform X, adding, “India deserves fair competition in every sector, not match-fixing monopolies.”

Mr. Gandhi also shared an opinion piece he wrote last year in which he argued that a new class of monopolists had replaced the fear once associated with the East India Company. He had called then for a “new deal for progressive Indian business”.

Congress general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal asserted that mass cancellations were the result of the government “sleeping at the wheel” and accused the Narendra Modi government of shrinking what was once a competitive aviation sector into a virtual duopoly.

“The Modi Government has reduced a once-competitive industry to two players, prioritising corporate greed over passengers’ interests. Lakhs of passengers are left helpless at airports for over 8 hours, only to be told their flights are cancelled. What is the mechanism that @MoCA_GoI has set up to ensure passengers get full refunds for these cancelled flights?” the Congress MP asked.

“From the collapse of Jet Airways and Go First to Air India’s monopoly merger every move that has contributed to this disastrous outcome has happened under their watch. As a result, ordinary passengers in need of urgent travel can no longer afford plane tickets, a situation of zero accountability for either the airlines or the @MoCA_GoI, and now a nationwide shutdown of flights,” he added.

Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera said the chaos at airports was a direct consequence of excessive concentration of market power. “It was said that people wearing slippers would fly. But now at airports, shoes and slippers are being exchanged between passengers and staff. Two people run the party, two run the government, two run the businesses this is the result,” Mr. Khera said in a post on X.

Raising the issue during the Zero Hour in the Lok Sabha, BJP MP Jagdambika Pal urged the government to restore normalcy at the earliest.

“We are in Parliament from Monday to Friday, but on Saturday and Sunday, all of us have programmes in our constituencies…. Some have to go to Bengaluru, some to Kolkata, some to Chennai,” Mr. Pal said, adding that the sudden cancellations have thrown these schedules into disarray. “My evening flight has been cancelled. The next morning’s flight has been cancelled too,” he added.