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The flight of capital

We think you know it: politics is a ruddy expensive game.

If you insist on proof, we will point to Orissa. A poor state which, even without the super cyclone, needs as much help as possible.

"True, true," you will agree. "It needs a lot of money for development."

Being a socially-conscious, decent sort of chap, you may even add, "Sixty per cent of its population still lives below the poverty line. Not for it such luxuries as election campaigns!"

Whereupon, we will inform you to the contrary. No, we will not assault you with mind-numbing figures. Instead, we will strive to drive home our point by presenting certain stats we came by concerning the most expensive component of the electioneering here -- chopper charges.

You see, in Orissa politicians of stature campaign by road as little as possible. "We can cover more ground by air," they assure you. "The places are just too distant."

So they fly high. And their expenses soar higher.

Now let's figure out what kind of bill Biju Janata Dal president Naveen Patnaik, the one who's winging it more than the others, is running up.

Between February 8 and February 19, his schedule says he has been in the air for about 2,655 minutes. That's over 44 hours.

There's one more day to go before electioneering ends here. Which means that he will use it for, say, another four hours. (Be charitable, come on; assume he will let go the chopper after the 20th.) That makes it a total of 48 flying hours.

Inquiries with the private airlines concerned tell you that the normal charge is Rs 60,000 per flying hour for the six-seater Ecureuil machine that Patnaik uses.

Since Patnaik is a regular customer, assume that the said company has given him special reduced rates. How much could it be? Rs 5,000 less? Or Rs 10,000?

To be on the safer side, let's take it that he gets the chopper for Rs 45,000. Fine? Forty-eight times Rs 45,000 give you Rs 2,160,000.

Please add to that the extras. Waiting charges per hour are, let's assume, Rs 2,500. (It's usually more, but Patnaik is a special customer, remember?). The BJD uses the chopper for at least eight hours a day.

There is no charge for the first two hours, so let's take an average of six hours for the 13 days under consideration. The calci throws up Rs 195,000.

Total expenses till now: Rs 21,60,000 + Rs 195,000 = Rs 23,55,000.

Now there's what can be labelled booking charges. When you requisition a chopper for a long duration you get to pay that too, you see.

For the two-seater that the Congress uses, it has had to shell out Rs 500,000 in that category, according to an official. Let's take that as the standard.

Thus, the BJD's total stands at Rs 2,855,000. The next on the list is the Congress.

Both J B Patnaik and Chief Minister Hemanda Biswal make use of it, though not so extensively. Luckily for their party, they are content with three-seaters. So, Rs 20,000 per flying hour.

Including February 19, JB has made four trips (he has requisitioned the machine for the whole month, but let's limit ourselves with just the pre-election period). Assuming a minimum of three hours in the air each time, his bill works out to Rs 240,000.

On Biswal's account, let's hike it up by the same amount, so that the total is Rs 480,000. We've got to add the Rs 500,000 booking charges or whatever.

The Congress expense, so, touches Rs 948,000.

On to the BJP now. It chooses to fly mostly when outstation bigwigs like Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Shatrughan Sinha and Hema Malini hit Orissa.

The Congress too hires extra machines when Madame Sonia Gandhi or other biggies come from Delhi.

Finally, there is the expense of bringing such folks all the way to Bhubaneswar by chartered planes. Rolling together all such costs, shall we add up a very, very modest Rs 1,000,000?

So what were our figures again? Rs 2,855,000 from the BJD and Rs 948,000 for the Congress, right? Plus the charges for bringing in outstation politicians, Rs 1,000,000.

Grand total = Rs 4,803,000.

Man, that's a hell of a lot of money to burn.

Assembly Election 2000

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