A special air force jet carrying Sonia Gandhi came within 1,000ft of a Virgin Atlantic flight last week but civil aviation officials said the “air-miss” posed no danger. DGCA chief Kanu Gohain, however, said “no unsafe situation was created” as both the planes, the IAF jet and Virgin’s Airbus A 340, which was coming from London, were under constant radar surveillance and VHF (very high frequency) radar contact.
Well we are all glad to know there was no “unsafe situation” but what exactly is the Indian Air Force doing flying Sonia Gandhi around ?
Since Offstumped posted this piece an interesting discovery. Sonia Gandhi was in Srinagar but had to cut short her trip to rush New Delhi to meet Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa. Was that the reason why rules were bent to rush Sonia to Delhi ?
Offstumped dug into Government of India documents to see what the policy for use of Indian Air Force flights was and found this.
Ministry of Defence maintains a fleet of aircraft in the Air Force Communication Squadron at New Delhi to provide air transport within the country to VIPs. The squadron operates three Boeing 737, seven Avro aircraft and six MI-8 helicopters. The orders regulating the use of special VIP flights stipulate that except the President, Vice President, the Prime Minister and the Heads of foreign Governments who are categorised as “VVIP”, other entitled personages (OEPs) i.e. Defence Minister, Minister of Home Affairs, Cabinet Secretary, other ministers of the Central Government, Minister of State in the Ministry of Defence, Chiefs of the three Services, Defence Secretary and senior Service and civilian officers connected with Defence organisations can also avail of the facility of special flight. However, other entitled personages are to make use of commercial air services on official duty, whenever possible.
This from a 1998 Comptroller and Auditor General, CAG report on Defence. The audit goes into excrutiating detail of how IAF aircrafts are used for everything but Defence. Notice there is no mention of VIP’s outside the Government in the OEP category. Now Sonia Gandhi was accorded Cabinet Minister status as Chairperson of the National Advisory Council, NAC. A post she no longer holds after the Office of Profit fiasco.
So under what exact status is the UPA Chairman and Congress President who is merely a Member of Parliament is entitled to the use of IAF Jets ?
So Offstumped looked even harder for instances where the policy was maybe revised during the UPA regime and found this. A May 2005 press release by the Ministry of Defense reiterating the policy for use of IAF aircrafts.
Entitled Passengers
(a) The President, the Vice President and the Prime Minister are entitled to the use of the VIP Aircraft.
(b) The following passengers are also entitled to the use of the VIP aircraft, it if is essential to do so and an aircraft is available:-
1. Minister of Defence;
2. Minister of Home Affairs;
3. Minister of State in the Ministry of Defence;
4. Chief of the Army Staff;
5. Chief of the Naval Staff;
6. Chief of the Air Staff;
7. Defence Secretary;
8. Other Ministers of the Central Government and senior services and civilian officers who are connected with the Defence Organisation; and
9. Cabinet Secretary.
(c) It is expected that, except the President, the Vice President and the Prime Minister other users will make use commercial air services on official duty, whenever possible.
(d) The aircraft of the VIP flight are to be used on official duty only.
(e) For entitled passengers when journey is not for defence purposes the cost will be recovered accordingly to scales prescribed from time to time .
(f) No recovery will be made in cases where the Competent Authority for reasons of State decides to provide an Air lift.
(g) Normally for visits of a Commission IAF aircraft are not provided.
Again no mention of Members of Parliament.
Offstumped Poser to the Government : What exactly is Sonia Gandhi doing misusing Indian Air Force jets in blatant violation of policy ?
It looks like gutless wonder Shivraj Patil accompanied her to attend a women’s rally in Srinagar. This raises 3 questions
what official business was the Home Minister attending to at a congress party event in Srinagar.
Why did he not use commercial air ?
Has the MHA borne the cost of flying Sonia Gandhi to a congress party rally in Srinagar ?
Most importantly if it was a Shivraj Patil sponsored IAF junket that Sonia hopped on why are all news reports calling it Sonia’s IAF flight and not Home Minister’s IAF flight.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I guess when you chamcha crew occupies all of the eligible posts, you get the benefits. Must be nice to rule India by proxy, I must admit!
This is opening of a Pandora’s box. Various CAG reports have castigated ministers & their spouses, wives of service chiefs, bureaucrats etc.
Atleast in case of politicians, their parties reimburse the costs all the time. What about the bureaucrats and generals? Who will ask them to pay?
Its a much bigger and deeper malaise running deep in our society. Singling out and targeting Sonia Gandhi alone to make it look as if she is the only one when politicians from all parties have done the same over the years is not fair. It would have been nice if all politicians from BJP and other opposition parties, wives of senior bureaucrats, generals and air marshals had also been highlighted. Else, it only reflects a biased mind where context and perspective are commodities easily discarded.
Today’s congress bulletin seems to have been issued by chingo chango instead of righto wrongo.
Why are democracy, accountability and non-abusive use of power alien concepts for congress workers?
Yossarin,trusting you’re ability to dig information,may i request you to dig a little more and i m sure you will ind that on most occasions she would be traveling with either defense Minister or Home Minister.Please let us know.
As for Ding Dong /ROW/Ping Pong…Oh! I see it is Ching Chong:-) …come on guys we do need some comic relief too bhai! Lagaey Raho Sonia ke bhai…lagey raho.
PI.
Oh Yossarin. Don’t be silly. It’s not just IAF flying privileges. The Queen’s family has access to a big posh house, cars for self and family, and peons by dozens all supplied by tax payers – this even when she was not even in politics.
While Indira took care of the other royal families in the country, Nehru family is our own royal family. The family is only one holding the wall of secularism in India – just like the enlightened imperial British did.
Don’t you ever question the royalty. The family has broad support the “masses” – their words not mine (they are not people).
Ching Chong, is Vajpayee enjoying the PM’s house even now? When Vice President Shekawat resigned from his post, he took his own car back from President office back home. Don’t talk about moral equivalence between BJP leadership and corrupt Congress I leadership.
Absolutely Unnecessary to comment on these issues! I am sure if this incident would have happened, you only would have raised questions about why was she not travelling in hi-secutiry? and by the way, In India today, every tom, dick and harry associated with some legislative assembly or remotely connected with the somebody in power enjoys benefits that no body else does …
Today, there are so many politicians in India who get Z+ security [even when they dont deserve it and no body would ever kill them] Looking at them, I can safely say that Sonia gandhi deserves everything connected with her secutrity. On her visit to J&K [which continues to be a hot-bed for terrorism in India], thats the least Indian Government could have done…
PI – It looks like gutless wonder Shivraj Patil accompanied her to attend a women’s rally in Srinagar. This raises 3 questions what official business was the Home Ministerattending to at a congress party event in Srinagar. Why did he not use commercial air ? Has the MHA borne the cost of flying Sonia Gandhi to a congress party rally in Srinagar ?
Most importantly if it was a Shivraj Patil sponsored IAF junket that Sonia hopped on why are all news reports calling it Sonia’s IAF flight and not Home Minister’s IAF flight.
There are two issues which can be raised on this matter :-
1. the legal aspect (accompanying the Home Minsiter takes care of that)
2. the Moral aspect (there can be endless debate on this, though a morally bankrupt BJP has little right to point this out)
But this article shows the “bankrupcy of issues” that BJP & its supports are left with in today’s context. In the BJP/RSS domain – Sonia Gandhi is most hated character simply because they see her as the biggest obstacle to their path to power. A continuous smear campaign therfore goes on against her unabated.
BJP has faltered on almost all substantial political issues in the last 3 years – in their attempt to put the Congress-led UPA govt on the mat! This obviously leads to a lot of frustation…
ONE MUST SEE THIS OUTBURST AGAINST SONIA IN THIS LIGHT !
Row,
>> bankrupcy of issues
What non-sense? So will you please tell us what issues should the BJP or its right wing supporters raise so that you the ‘royal’ family is not bothered at any point of time?
This cowardice to answer pertinent questions is all to prevalent in Congress. No wonder RoW subscribes to that.
EC says no IAF plane for Advani (Go To Top)
http://www.indiatraveltimes.com/news/news2004/feb04/feb2304.html#7
New Delhi: The Election Commission on Monday rejected a government request to allow Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani to use an Indian Air Force aircraft for election campaigning. “The Commission has said that the existing instruction will continue. The IAF aircraft will be only for the Prime Minister,” EC spokesman A.N. Jha said, adding that this decision should not be seen as marring rlations between the commission and the government.
Jha said that the commission had been able to reduce poll expenditure with the help of electronic voting machines. The use of EVMs had enabled the commission to rationalise voters’ list at polling stations. Besides reducing the number of polling booths, the number of persons deployed at a booth had also reduced from five to four. “All these measures result in savings to the commission, other wise expenditure would have been much higher,” Jha added. EVMs would be used in all 543 Parliamentary consitutencies in the coming general elections, making the electoral process virtually paperless. “We have procured 10.75 lakh voting machines and decided to use these machines in all the Lok Sabha constituencies as well as in all Assembly elections,” he said.
http://www.hindu.com/2004/03/11/stories/2004031107530100.htm
CPI(M) alleges misuse of IAF plane by Advani
By Our Special Correspondent
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, MARCH 10. T he Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, has used Indian Air Force aircraft to airlift materials for the `Bharat Uday Yatra’ and the Election Commission should intervene immediately to stop the `yatra’ as it involved `misuse’ of official machinery, the Kerala CPI (M) secretary, Pinarayi Vijayan, alleged here today.
In a statement, he sought a comprehensive inquiry into the `use’ of the IAF aircraft to transport `yatra’ material to Thiruvananthapuram and action against those responsible. This was a clear violation of the Election Commission ban on use of official aircraft by the Deputy Prime Minister for electioneering, he said.
Mr. Vijayan alleged that the aircraft that brought the `yatra’ material to the Kerala capital had used the runway normally used by civilian flights and that the material was later transported from Thiruvananthapuram to Kanyakumari in private trucks. If the material transported to Kanyakumari was part of the security brief of Mr. Advani, the authorities concerned could have used the trucks of the Central Reserve Police Force, the Army or the IAF. The use of private trucks showed the “gross misuse of official machinery.”
Nobody was opposed to the Prime Minister or the Deputy Prime Minister campaigning for the BJP, but any attempt to misuse official machinery or use such campaign to create a communal divide would amount to violation of the model code of conduct requiring intervention by the Election Commission, he said.
Obviously, there are separate set of rules for people born in Italy and Pakistan (err…before it was formed)!
Thanks Yyossarin,I knew it.See it is simple as this another Chin Chong now as ROW confirms … for congress and its Dirty Harries all rules/regulations mean nothing.
Well as for what HM was doing (!) or she, doing with HM…the attitude of Congress is well reflected by our in house ‘Congress Mole’.:-)
PI.
BTW all ching chongs,ting tongs.ping pongs ROW etc.etc.Care answering a simple question.
Ok for a minute even if we believe you that Your Sonia Mata is so ‘hugely’ popular and so loved she is that the whole of India ‘prostrates’ before her,Then why do she need so much of ’security’ at the poor ‘aam adami’s’ expense? WHY? Who would harm her? She is so loved,adored…blah blah…so who would hurt her? Why even the Bigger ching chongs than our in house ones are literally stripped naked by her security guards? Chin Ping Ting ROW any answer?