The death of a hijacker, and his long political life after the event

The year was 1978. Less than two years after it had toppled Indira Gandhi post-Emergency, the Janata Party government led by Morarji Desai was hurtling fast towards a split. Sensing the weakening of Janata unity, a reinvigorated Congress had been staging protests across the country.

On December 19, 1978, the Lok Sabha expelled Indira Gandhi as MP for “breach of privilege and contempt of the House” and sent her to jail. The prison term was to last till the prorogation of the then-ongoing Winter Session of Parliament. In a message to partymen before going to Tihar Jail, Gandhi wrote: “This moment is not one of sorrow or of anger. We must meet it calmly and peacefully, as this is and will continue to be our tradition.”

A day later, Bholanath, a 25-year-old who had joined the Congress early in his youth, got onto the Indian Airlines Flight 410 at Lucknow. The Boeing 737 was coming from Calcutta (as it was called then) and bound for Delhi.

A resident of Moon Chhapra village in Ballia district, Pandey had done his graduation from Banaras Hindu University, and had a Phd in Hindi.

As per The Indian Express report at the time, Pandey was accompanied by another Congress leader, Devendra Pandey, 28, and they brandished what they claimed were guns. The plane had 126 passengers, and a crew of six.

Some reports said the Pandeys demanded that the plane be taken to Nepal first, and then Bangladesh. When the pilots refused, citing reportedly lack of fuel, the two hijackers settled for Varanasi.

The Indian Express reported: “(At Varanasi airport), one passenger, S K Sodhi, jumped out from the back of the plane and breathlessly conveyed to the waiting authorities the skyjackers’ demand that Congress (I) leader Indira Gandhi be released from jail unconditionally… The skyjackers also demanded that UP CM Ram Naresh Yadav and PM Morarji Desai come to negotiate with them. Yadav flew to Varanasi late last night.”

The hijack drama lasted 13 hours, ending at 6.30 am the next day when the Pandeys walked out and “handed over two toy pistols and a cricket ball wrapped in black cloth, looking like a hand grenade…”. The Pandeys were transported to Lucknow by a government plane. “They got down… nonchalantly and shouted ‘Indira Gandhi Zindabad’,” before being taken into custody.

During the questioning that followed, the Pandeys were reported to have claimed that they got money from Congress leaders for the exercise. “They are understood to have named two office-bearers of the State Congress (I) Committee who, they said, had given them Rs 400 and Rs 200… They had purchased air tickets from Lucknow to Delhi for Rs 350 out of this amount,” The Indian Express reported.

On December 26, 1978, Indira Gandhi was released from jail. Among the family members who had visited her, as per an Indian Express report, were Sonia Gandhi and grandson Rahul.

Months later, Indira Gandhi returned to power at the Centre. Soon after, Bholanath Pandey was released from jail, and the case against him and Devendra dropped.

The Congress gave a ticket to Bholanath from Doaba Assembly seat in Ballia district. In 1980, just 27, Bholanath became an MLA for the first time. He repeated the feat from the same seat in 1989.

Bholanath never won any electoral battle after that but, within the Congress, his hijacking stunt cemented his reputation as a leader close to the Gandhis. The party expressed its gratitude with a series of organisational posts to Bholanath, including national general secretary of the All India Youth Congress, and national general secretary of the All India Congress Committee.

As recently as 2014, with the Congress already decimated in UP, Bholanath tried his luck again at the hustings. In 2009, he had managed to give a scare to the BSP from the Salempur seat, securing 1.56 lakh votes. But in 2019, amidst a Narendra Modi wave, Bholanath came in fifth in the constituency.

There was talk within the Congress after this that Bholanath was planning to leave the party. However, he remained a loyalist.

His demise came after a long period of illness, which kept him out of public life. In his condolence message, Congress state president Ajay Rai called the 71-year-old’s passing “an irreplaceable loss”, talking about how Bholanath was associated with the Congress his entire life.

In his message, Congress Ballia district president Umashankar Pathak said: “Pandey had once hijacked an Indian Airlines plane… in protest against the arrest of Indira Gandhi. After this, he came to limelight at the national level.”

Devendra, the other hijacker, also went on to become a Congress MLA in the 1980s and an office-bearer in the UP Congress. He died seven years ago.

Of Bholanath’s four sons and two daughters, none has been very politically active. Then, 12 days back, one of them joined the Congress.