According to the airline’s spokersperson, while some restless passengers requested Thakur to change her seat from the emergency row, which is not allocated to passengers on wheelchairs, to a non-emergency row, others requested the crew to offload her as she was refusing to change the seat.

Ultimately, the BJP MP from Bhopal acquiesced and moved to the seat on a non-emergency row. A source said the flight got delayed by approximately 45 minutes due to this matter.

The SpiceJet spokesperson said, "The Delhi-Bhopal flight is operated by Bombardier Q400 aircraft (78 seater). On this aircraft, the first row is the emergency row seat and is not allocated to passengers on wheelchairs. As the BJP MP had come with her own wheelchair and had not booked through the airline, the staff wasn't aware of this fact that she was a wheelchair passenger.”