Governors vs Chief Ministers | The politics behind helicopter rides

Uddhav Thackeray

Political grace and dignity clearly seems to be a thing of time long gone. As insults and humiliations go, the one offered to Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshiyari was both tactful and petty at the same time, leaving the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government and Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray accused of vengeance. However, since the Koshiyari-Thackeray standoff has been on for a while now, it is not clear who is playing the games.

On February 11, Koshiyari was scheduled to fly to Dehradun, the capital of his home state Uttarakhand, to attend an event at the IAS academy at Musoorie. The Governor’s secretariat, on February 2, wrote to the Maharashtra government informing them of the intention to make use of the government helicopter for the purpose. Permission to use state aircraft is given by the general administration department.

The Governor drove to the airport and boarded the aircraft allegedly without securing a clearance from the state government — and this meant that he had to disembark. Later, Koshiyari booked himself on a commercial flight to Dehradun.

The state government claims that a day before the flight, on February 10, it informed the Governor’s secretariat that the helicopter would not be available for the trip.

The CMO has stated that the Governor’s office was presumptuous in assuming that a letter of intent to use the helicopter was tantamount to permission. The state government maintains that responsibility must be fixed on the official who misled the Governor.

That said, one wonders why the helicopter was parked at the airport rather than the helipad at the Raj Bhavan, where it is usually kept.

With such a development, politics cannot be far behind, The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has accused the MVA of being ‘undemocratic’. The Shiv Sena seems to be cocking-a-snook through a ‘tit-for-tat’ Marathi poem in its mouthpiece Saamna.

Maharashtra Congress President Nana Patole has accused Governor Koshiyari of creating an incident to make the state government look petty.

But pettiness in politics is not a new phenomenon. So far as use of helicopters by Governors and other VIPs go, permissions depend upon the whims and fancies of Chief Ministers.

When it came to the use of State aircraft, former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh was known to offend then Governor Bhai Mahavir. Mahavir was almost always kept waiting until the last minute for the use of the government chopper even for important functions related to the business of the state; and was mostly denied permission to use it. Singh's penchant for denial of the aircraft to the Governor got so bad that even when he was travelling abroad, the Chief Minister had the chopper parked at the Delhi airport rather than in Bhopal, where the Governor could access it if need be.

As political snubs and sharing a ride goes, the one by National Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar to the then virtually retired PV Narasimha Rao is an example of personal dislike getting in the way of grace and dignity.

When Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated, Rao was campaigning in Ramtek, near Nagpur, and Pawar, then the Congress Chief Minister of Maharashtra, was in Pune. Both would have to attend the funeral in Delhi, but when Rao called Pawar to ask for a lift in the State aircraft, Pawar demurred. A silly excuse that there was not enough fuel for a detour via Nagpur was given. Rao took a commercial flight to New Delhi and soon became the Prime Minister. Rao never forgave Pawar for that slight.

Personal equations, lack of goodwill and political rivalry between politicians, mainly Chief Ministers and Governors, have been reasons for the above cited helicopter slights. Apart from helicopter sagas, differences between state leaders and the governors is sadly plenty.

In 1982, Haryana Governor GD Tapase was allegedly slapped by chief ministerial candidate Devi Lal who thought he had been betrayed by Tapase, who after promising Devi Lal time for a show of strength of his MLAs, swore-in Bhajan Lal as Chief Minister.

More recently we’ve had the Chief Ministers of West Bengal, Kerala and Puducherry having open differences with their respective Governors. Coincidence or not, such Governor-Chief Minister face-offs are taking place in states which have a non-BJP government. In most of these cases the Governor has been accused of interfering in the affairs of a duly-elected state government.

As for the latest Koshiyari-Thackeray contretemps, the jury is still out on who has won this battle of perceptions.