This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.

BJP President Amit Shah Trapped In A Lift For 40 Minutes

Jammed Lift Leaves BJP President Amit Shah In A Pickle
President of India's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Amit Shah gestures as he addresses business leaders at a meeting organised by The Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Kolkata on August 12, 2015, during an interactive session entitled 'Economic agenda for the development of the Eastern Region'. AFP PHOTO/Dibyangshu SARKAR (Photo credit should read DIBYANGSHU SARKAR/AFP/Getty Images)
DIBYANGSHU SARKAR via Getty Images
President of India's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Amit Shah gestures as he addresses business leaders at a meeting organised by The Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Kolkata on August 12, 2015, during an interactive session entitled 'Economic agenda for the development of the Eastern Region'. AFP PHOTO/Dibyangshu SARKAR (Photo credit should read DIBYANGSHU SARKAR/AFP/Getty Images)

Master political organiser and BJP president Amit Shah bends to nobody. However, late on Thursday, the Machiavellian politico was forced to genuflect and crawl out off an obdurate, government-guesthouse lift in Patna that had to be broken, for it to disgorge Shah and four trapped colleagues.

Shah was scheduled to be in Patna for two days, ostensibly in preparation for the Bihar polls, and was set to leave on Friday.

Shah remained in the lift for nearly 20 minutes and rang the toll-free emergency number of the lift company after his lift abruptly jammed between the ground and first floor. The rescue operation--mediated by the Central Reserve Police Force--which then lasted another half hour. At the end of it, according to TOI, "...all of them were totally panic stricken..." and a flustered Shah " took more than half hour to get back to normal."

There's no news yet on what may have caused the lift to jam.

Despite not being a Member of Parliament, Amit Shah, is entitled to Z+ security and BJP State President, Mangal appeared livid at the quality of security. "It is a gross dereliction of duty and irresponsibility shown by the people responsible for facilities at the state guest house. There was nobody present there to deal with such emergencies despite the fact that a person having Z+ security cover was staying there," he told PTI.

In the run-up-to-the polls, the BJP is engaged in a bruising war of wards with the BJD-JDU alliance and has referred to incumbent NItish Kumar's rule as a 'jungleraaj' (a lawless administration).

Being stuck in a lift can be a traumatic and sometimes fatal experience. Earlier this month, a woman in Queen Mary Hospital, Lucknow and who was being conveyed in a lift after child birth, died, after the elevator got stuck for nearly 90 mins.

However Lalu Prasad Yadav, took a dig at Shah's ordeal and jibed that "a man has fat as Amit Shah ought not to be entering a lift at all..."

Less tragic but no less traumatic was New Yorker, Nicholas White's ordeal of being stuck in the elevator of a skyscraper for 41 hours. Every claustrophobic minute White spent was captured by the elevator's surveillance camera.

Apart from Amit Shah, Rajyasabha MP and Bihar BJP in-charge Bhupinder Singh; head of the Bihar BJP unit, Nagendra Kumar; Akhil Bhartiya Sangathan leader, Saudan Singh,and Amit Shah's personal secretary were with him.

Contact HuffPost India

Close
This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.