Jamnagar Air Force Base Turned Into International Airport For Anant Ambani’s Pre-Wedding Bash: A Step Too Far?

Jamnagar, Gujarat’s fifth-largest city, recently made headlines over the band, baaja and baaraat that arrived for Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani’s youngest son Anant Ambani and industrialist Viren Merchant’s daughter Radhika Merchant’s pre-wedding bash. Aside from pop star Rihanna’s first performance in India, the three-day festivities also involved turning a defence airport into an international airport for 10 days for the Ambani-Merchant family and guests to arrive and depart at ease.

The pre-wedding bash turned Reliance Industries’s quiet township into an affair full of glitz and glamour with Bollywood stars such as Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Aamir Khan, Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone, and business magnates like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Gautam Adani, N Chandrasekaran, and Kumar Mangalam Birla gracing the event. The guests stayed at the 900-square-feet luxurious Rajwadi tents created by Evoke Experiences, the company known for Rann Utsav Tent City in Kutch during the Kutch Rann Utsav.

Among all the guests, more than 50 arrived from overseas, creating a hassle for the Jamnagar airport officials who had to handle five times the traffic they are used to. Union ministries of Health, Finance, and Home Affairs were roped in to press in resources to set up a Custom, Immigration and Quarantine (CIQ) facility at the airport.

On a normal day, Jamnagar airport handles about six charter flights. However, in these 10 days, it is handling more than 400 charter flights. To tackle this, additional ground handling and security staff were brought in but the airport fell short of parking space. As a result, the charter planes were dropping passengers and then being parked at nearby airports like Rajkot, Porbandar, Ahmedabad, and Mumbai, according to a report by Business Standard.

The domestic airport in Jamnagar is an Indian Air Force station where some commercial flights are also allowed. However, for billionaire industry tycoon Ambani’s son, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) erected a passenger terminal building specially for the pre-wedding bash and the IAF also permitted them access to its sensitive 'technical' area between February 25 and March 5.

The special arrangements not only raise security concerns but also cast questions over the lengths rich businessmen can go to over a family event. The three-day event was a preliminary celebration for a wedding scheduled in July and one expects no less extravaganza from the influential Ambani family. However, can money and influence buy over the defence regulations of a country too?