In 2021, Himanta Biswa Sarma, by then Chief Minister of Assam, described the meeting with Rahul Gandhi that led him to leave the Congress. He had come to raise Assam’s problems before the state election. Gandhi was playing with his dog, and the dog took a biscuit from the plate. “I waited with my cup thinking that Rahul will push the calling bell,” Sarma said, according to The Sentinel.
The account is Sarma’s. Sources differ on whether the meeting took place in 2015 or 2016.
On June 24, 2015, Air India flight AI-446 from Leh to Delhi was due to leave at 10:20 a.m. It left at 11:12. An Indian Air Force report confirmed that the airline had been asked to delay the flight for a “VIP passenger.” Three passengers were not allowed to board. Kiren Rijiju, then Minister of State for Home Affairs, was on the flight with Nirmal Singh, Deputy Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir.
Rijiju first said he had not known about the delay. He later apologized: “I must say sorry to those who were offloaded and ensure such incidents are not repeated.”
On February 4, 2017, students at the Government Syed Murthuza Higher Secondary School in Tiruchy were told to assemble by 8 a.m. Two Tamil Nadu ministers, Vellamandi N. Natarajan and S. Valarmathi, were coming to hand out free bicycles. The ministers arrived at about 11:30. By then two girls in Class 11 had fainted and been taken to hospital. The ministers said they had been held up at another function.
In June 2026 a new park in West Tambaram, Chennai, was to be inaugurated at 6 p.m. The mayor, the deputy mayor, officials and residents arrived on time. The chief guest, Minister Sarathkumar, had not come by 7:30. The mayor and the deputy mayor left. They said elected representatives had not been shown due respect, and that such incidents kept happening.
The minister arrived around 8 p.m. He said he had been held up by engagements with the Chief Minister.
The director Subhash Ghai has said that the actor Shatrughan Sinha was never on time. “For a 9 am shift, he would show up only at 1 pm. For a 1 pm shift, he would come at 4.” The actor Gulshan Grover has described a day when Sinha agreed to come at noon, so that Grover could leave by 2 for another film. Sinha came at about five in the afternoon, while the director and the producer waited.
Sinha has said it himself. Main apni shaadi mein bhi 3 ghante late pahuncha tha. I reached even my own wedding three hours late, he told Amar Ujala in 2021.
Before the President’s address to Parliament in 2024, the Lok Sabha Secretariat told the members when to be in their seats. Its bulletin of January 29, 2024, asked them to “take their seats by 10.55 A.M. i.e. five minutes before the President arrives.”
At the Ashoka Jana Mana 2025 program in Puttur, Dakshina Kannada, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah was expected at noon. He arrived at 1 p.m., and the program ended at 3. The Deccan Herald reported that “13 people fell sick due to fatigue as they had been waiting for more than six hours.”
On November 23, 2023, schoolchildren in Panur, in Kerala’s Kannur district, lined the road in the sun to greet the motorcade of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. They stood there from about 11 a.m. The convoy passed at about noon. Student organizations complained to the state and national child rights commissions.
The Chief Minister defended the scene. “Children are innocent. They are waiting in hordes by the road to wave hands at the bus,” he said.
In November 2017 the BJP launched its Nava Karnataka Parivartan Yatra at an exhibition center in Bengaluru, with the party president, Amit Shah. Workers had been told to be there by 11 a.m. The reports differ on the times. The Deccan Chronicle wrote that the program “kicked off an hour- and -a -half late at 12.30 pm.” The Deccan Herald wrote that Shah was late by “at least two hours.”
Thousands of chairs stood empty. Shah was reported to be upset.
On December 9, 2025, students in Chandla, in the Chhatarpur district of Madhya Pradesh, were called to a sports ground at about 9 or 10 a.m. for a Sansad Khel Mahotsav, a sports festival. The program formally began near 3 p.m., when the chief guest arrived. He was V.D. Sharma, a BJP member of Parliament.
A girl player told him: Namaste to theek hai, lekin hum subah se intezaar kar rahe hain, kya hamare paas itna faltu time hai? Greetings are fine, but we have been waiting since morning. Do we have so much spare time?
Sharma smiled. He said the organizers had given him a 2 p.m. slot.