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'Vajpayee's men are killing Sonia's campaign'

The Congress on Tuesday charged the civil aviation ministry of obstructing its president Sonia Gandhi's election campaign by deliberately delaying her flights.

''The helicopter pilots assert that there is perfect visibility but the control towers of the civil aviation ministry rejects their contention and disallow both landing and take off, thereby seriously hampering her campaign schedule,'' party spokesperson Kapil Sibal said in New Delhi.

He said the caretaker government ''has misused'' all governmental institutions to sabotage the legitimate campaign of opposition parties. He recalled that the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Uttar Pradesh had denied permission to Gandhi to hold a meeting at Aligarh on flimsy grounds, whereas permission was readily given to Prime Minister A B Vajpayee.

In Shahajahanpur too, permission to hold a Congress rally was withheld, he claimed.

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