Better to hire than purchasing one

The state government has reportedly decided to hire choppers instead of buying them. The decision, sources said, was taken after a chopper of the state government started malfunctioning with the chief minister on board.he government officials said the maintenance of choppers and planes had been a major headache for the state government. Out of two choppers the state has, one is functional. The other is beyond repair because it is outdated. The government now believes it would be better to hand the responsibility of maintaining aircraft to private players. “It will virtually mean winding up of the state aviation department. Nobody ventures near the 10-seater aeroplane purchased at the cost of around Rs 15 crore when Buta Singh was the governor. The plane turned obsolete even before it was purchased,” an official said.

Poll truth

Congress leaders have dubbed Mahachandar Prasad Singh as ungrateful and declared that the party had given him due honour by nominating him from the graduate constituency of the State Legislative Council though he lost in the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls. The former MLC shot back saying the Congress had nothing to do with his four successive victories in the council seat. He claimed that he won because of his personal relationship with members of the voters’ college. “It is an open secret that elections for the council from the graduate and teachers’ seats have nothing to do with the political fortunes of a party and is won through money power. How can you explain an LJP candidate winning from a Nalanda council seat?” said a JD (U) leader. Till recently, even as fortunes of the Congress dipped sharply, the party members were still able to win seats in the council on teachers and graduate seats, he added.

Red tape trouble

The President’s visit to Bihar also got entangled in red tape, albeit a bit. According to sources, the State Legislative Council asked Raj Bhavan to provide it with some ceremonial seats for guests in the function to be addressed by President Patil. The council secretariat was shocked to find the request turned down by Raj Bhavan. Sources said the request was trashed because it did not come from the department of building construction according to the protocol. “It is another example to show how right chief minister Nitish Kumar was when he was grumbling about red tape. Instead of getting the work done, a procedural lapse was cited,” said a politician.

Bihari and pride

The government is providing stickers on the occasion of Bihar Divas declaring that it belonged to a “proud Bihari”. The chief minister’s vehicle displayed the sticker. But it was missing in the car of the Leader of the Opposition, Abdul Bari Siddiqui. “The person who put on the sticker on the chief minister’s car should have put it on my car also,” said Siddiqui, insisting that in the absence of a sticker he was no less a proud Bihari than the chief minister. Stickers, he argued, prove nothing.