Tezpur, 8/4: President Droupadi Murmu made her maiden sortie in a Sukhoi 30 MKI fighter aircraft on Saturday at the Tezpur Air Station in Assam.
The President boarded the aircraft at 11 am and took off from Tezpur Air Force Station for the historic sortie minutes later. The aircraft landed at the airforce station at 11.30 am, after completing the sortie.
Although Murmu is not the first President to make a sortie in a fighter aircraft, Tezpur Air Force Station hosted a President’s sortie for the first time.
Tezpur air force station is one of the air force stations under the Eastern Air Command of the IAF. It looks after air defence on India’s border with China, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Bhutan.
APJ Abdul Kalam, Pratibha Patil and Ramnath Kovind had made similar sorties in Sukhoi 30 fighter aircraft at the IAF station in Pune, Maharashtra, during their tenure as the President.
Murmu made the sortie at Tezpur at a time China and India are engaged in a squabble over Arunachal Pradesh. Tezpur in North Assam shares a boundary with Arunachal Pradesh. India on Tuesday rejected China’s move to assign Mandarin and Tibetan names to 11 places in Arunachal Pradesh in order to assert its claim over the frontier state.
Murmu was received by Chief of Eastern Air Command, Air Marshal SP Dharkar. Assam Governor Gulab Chand Kataria and CM Himanta Biswa Sarma were also present on the occasion.