Shiv Sena

Ravindra Gaikwad

Osmanabad

Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus

Prime Minister

Member of Parliament Gaikwad, whose slipper assault on an Air India staffer earned him nationwide notoriety, makes an aide dress like him and introduces himself as ‘saheb’s secretary’.MP, whose infamy following the slipper assault on an Air India staffer and the subsequent flying ban is attracting hordes of selfie-seekers, has created a doppelganger to deal with the situation.Gaikwad is now accompanied at all times by his Man Friday Ratnakant Sagar, with whom he bears a striking resemblance (see pictures). Going a step further to ensure nobody can tell the difference between the real Gaikwad and his body double, theleader has instructed Sagar to dress in his kurta pyjamas, while he roams around in a casual T-shirt and baggy pants when not in the Parliament.Mumbai Mirror caught up with Gaikwad on Thursday night at the(CST), where he and Sagar were waiting to board a train to Latur. A few people who stopped by to inquire whether it was the same Ravindra Gaikwad, were politely directed towards Sagar. “That’s my boss Ravisaheb Gaikwad,” the real one said, introducing himself as “saheb’s secretary”. The doppelganger obliged all selfie-seekers with folded hands.“After the Air India incident and the media trial that I was subjected to, many people have started recognising me, and they request for selfies. I don’t like to turn them away but at the same time it gets time-consuming, so I chose my party worker Ratnakant Sagar, who has been working with me for a long time, to pose as me. As you can see, there is a resemblance, and I gave him my kurta pyjamas to make it appear that he is indeed Gaikwad the MP,” Gaikwad said.When asked whether they have ever been found out, he said, “The way I am dressed, even the people from my town will not be able to recognise me. Nobody associates such casual clothes with me.” He recounted that during one of his train journeys a few weeks ago, the ticketcheckers wanted a selfie, and it was Sagar “who got the job done”.“Ratnakant posed with the TCs and they went away happy. Despite with us in the same compartment for over 12 hours, they were not able to tell the difference. I was enjoying every bit of it,” Gaikwad said.No stranger to controversies – he once forcefed a Muslim caterer during the fasting month of Ramzan over the quality of chapatis served at the Maharashtra Sadan in Delhi – Gaikwad insisted he will continue to travel by train even though the flying ban on him has been revoked. “My last two journeys on the Rajdhani Express, from Mumbai to Delhi, were very comfortable. I’m in no hurry to catch a flight,” he said.Talking about the March 23 Air India incident for the first time in detail, Gaikwad told Mumbai Mirror that it was the mention ofNarendra Modi that got his goat.“I demanded that a complaint register be handed over to me, and kept waiting for the same to arrive. After some time, a gentleman walked towards me and in a high-pitched tone inquired what the problem was. I introduced myself as a Member of Parliament, to which he retorted, ‘MP hain toh kya? Teri complaint Modi se karunga’. That’s when I got really angry,” he said.Does he not regret hitting an elderly person? “Not at all. I removed my footwear and hit him about 20 to 25 times, even when everybody tried to hold me back and calm me down.”Regarding Shiv Sena’s vociferous support to him in the wake of the flying ban, Gaikwad said he was not a criminal. “The ban was decided in a couple of minutes. Am I a hardened criminal? Why didn’t the Air India form a committee and hear my side before effecting the ban? Why was there no ban on Vijay Mallya, who used these aircraft to fly out of the country permanently?”He also sounded extremely bitter about the “media trial” he claimed to have faced. “If journalists feel they reflect the sentiments of the society, let them contest an election. We will all see how many votes they get.”Whether Gaikwad continues to travel by train, or decides to finally take a flight, if you spot him and want a selfie, make sure you approach the man in the T-shirt and not the kurta pyjamas.