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| Chopper rides of VIPs may come under check | | |
ABID SHAH
New Delhi, September 3: The ghastly air crash of Andhra Pradesh Government helicopter on Wednesday, killing Chief Minister, Mr Y.S. Rahshekhara Reddy, and four others may turn out to be a dampener for extensive use of choppers that was expected in the forthcoming Assembly elections of Maharashtra, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh.
The last of them calls most for the use of helicopters since the State’s human habitations often nestle amid inaccessible hills unlike Haryana whose every village is connected with good motorable roads. As for Maharashtra, it is a large State with far flung Vidhan Sabha constituencies where wont on the part of politicos can well be stronger than elsewhere to use choppers to reach the electorate.
In any case the use of choppers whether in plain or in hills by campaigners has been becoming a norm rather than exception. Hardly any attention would have gone to this had Mr Rajshekhara Reddy emerged unscathed from what happened yesterday. But the Andhra tragedy has benumbed spirits.
The Civil Aviation Minister, Mr Praful Patel, did talk of wide use of choppers in elections. Speaking to reporters on Thursday after the Andhra chopper tragedy, Mr Patel pointed out that the visual navigation that pilots resort to while mostly flying VIPs during elections instead of relying on more dependable navigational assistance signs from their control panel. Moreover, the campaigning for the October 13 polls for the three Vidhan Sabhas has to commence during mid or at best towards the last leg of monsoon when weather can well be inhospitable and visibility poor.
Thus, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation has to up its guards and check the airworthiness of choppers before they are booked by parties and their leaders for campaign hopping. Commercial helicopter services that do a brisk business during elections often get away without complying otherwise stringent DGCA norms since the chopper service providers often drop names of their powerful clients to influence officials. Not just this, the pilots of the helicopters thus hired too are often made to submit to the whims of theist powerful passengers.
Aviation experts say that there cannot be any more tempting invitation to hazards than skirting rules as is mostly the case during the hubbub of elections. According to them, only providence has been saving highfliers during elections in the past though there have also been a few incidents like crash landing and choppers’ hitting electric polls and wires during take offs.
The three states going to the polls this time on the same day were expected to have a staggered schedule until the Election Commission announced October 13 as the polling day for all three. Those in the know of things say that often multi-phased polling is justified by Home Ministry mandarins before the commission on the pretext of security and availability of forces. Yet, sources point out, this is done more to ensure convenience of powerful campaigners cutting across party lines than what is made out to be the reason for this and availability of choppers and aircraft to cover the VVIPs itinerary is often also one of the considerations among others.
Not just this, the payments made to the chopper companies is understated by parties and their leaders while filing expenses details with the commission as limits have been put by it on election expenses for parties as well as candidates. Thus, Wednesday’s tragedy should be taken as a cut off point to fudging safety and accounting norms that have thus far been resorted to with impunity, say sources. More so since now most such top-notch chopper users have been thanking their stars with baited breath since in the past they have often been flying what could well turn into “death machines” and yet been lucky.
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