On Friday evening, a passenger who took an Air India flight from Madurai tweeted a picture of his boarding pass having photos of PM Modi and Mr Rupani in an advertisement for the Vibrant Gujarat summit held in January.
"Air India had issued notice on March 25 to all domestic stations to discontinue usage of boarding cards with Vibrant Gujarat Advertisement on reverse with immediate effect. Today's incident is apparently a human error. A show cause notice for this error has been iss
ued to the airport manager of AI at Madurai," an airline spokesman said. "Today AI management has reiterated it
At New Delhi airport today March 25th, 2019.
— Shashi Kant IPS (@shashikantips54) March 25, 2019
My Air India Boarding Pass, prominently flashes Narendra Modi, "Vibrant Gujrat" & Vijay Rupani. Picture of boarding pass is below.
Wonder why we are wasting public money on this Election Commission, which doesn't see, hears or speak... pic.twitter.com/7t49cNIlAR
On Monday, a picture of Air India boarding pass - which had photos of PM Modi and Mr Rupani on it - was tweeted by a passenger, triggering a major controversy. Consequently, the national carrier issued a statement that it "has decided to roll back" these boarding passes.
On Wednesday, the Election Commission issued a show cause notice to the Railways and Civil Aviation ministries over the use of pictures of the Prime Minister on rail tickets and Air India boarding passes as prima facie it violated the model code of conduct.
On March 20, tickets with photos of the Prime Minister were withdrawn by the railways after the Trinamool raised the issue with the poll body.
The railways had said it was a third-party advertisement and leftover from a pack of tickets printed a year earlier was used. The national transporter also instructed its zones to withdraw the tickets.
Last month, the Civil Aviation Ministry "requested" airlines flying on domestic routes to give their passengers a letter written by Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu that enlisted various "achievements and initiatives" of the Modi government in the aviation sector.