'Undiscerning and ill-informed': Congress' KC Venugopal, Jyotiraditya Scindia spar over airfares

The rising cost of domestic air travel has sparked a verbal clash between Congress organization general secretary KC Venugopal and Union civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia. Responding to the minister's earlier clarifications, Venugopal issued a fresh rebuttal, asserting that the government's promise of affordable air travel for the common man was merely a "cruel joke" on the people. In response to Scindia's characterization of Venugopal's remarks on the aviation sector as "undiscerning and ill-informed," the Congress MP presented what he called "hard facts" that could not be dismissed by "distorting figures and misrepresenting the actual facts on the ground." Venugopal highlighted the twin challenges of youth unemployment, currently at 23%, and inflation as severe blows to the middle class. Furthermore, he argued that the aviation ministry's failure to control airfares had exacerbated the plight of India's middle-class population.