Odisha Governor splurges ₹46 lakh on trip to hometown

The highest business class air fare between Bhubaneswar and New Delhi, covered in approximately 2 hours and 20 minutes, happens to be around ₹30,000. And there are 12 direct flights daily between the two cities.

But the newly appointed Governor of Odisha, Ganeshi Lal, a Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) activist from Haryana, last month paid a whopping ₹41 lakh to travel to Delhi in a private chartered jet. As Sirsa, the Laat Sahib’s hometown, still does not have an airstrip to allow a jet to land, he hired a helicopter to travel from Delhi and Sirsa, a distance of 260 Kilometres, and ended up paying ₹5 lakh more for a to-and-fro helicopter ride.

The last time Professor Ganeshi Lal had hit the headlines was for bowing before godman Rampal, who is in prison on charges of sedition, waging war against the state government, murder, arson and rioting among others.

It was a four-day trip that he undertook last month. The Governor left Bhubaneswar on June 9 and was back in the Raj Bhavan on June 13. A Deputy Secretary in the General Administration Department committed the cardinal sin of questioning the extravagance and shot off a letter to the Raj Bhavan to explain the circumstances and the urgency to hire a chartered flight for His Excellency.

The letter sought information about “reasons and circumstances for hiring of a helicopter for use of Governor and deviation in the approved schedule of the flight and whether approval of the competent authority has been taken for the purpose or not”.

The letter enclosed the invoice of Pinnacle Air Private Ltd towards use of twin-engine Jet Aircraft Legacy 650 (VT-AOK) for a round trip between Bhubaneswar and New Delhi on June 10 and June 13, amounting to ₹41.18 lakh, and use of another chopper from New Delhi to Sirsa for ₹5 lakh.

The austerity loving Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), however, objected after the media got a whiff of the letter. And after the party’s top brass and presumably the Governor himself expressed their displeasure, the Odisha Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi went scurrying to the Raj Bhavan to tender an apology. The Chief Secretary’s office in fact issued a statement asserting that stringent action would be taken for the miscommunication.

The former state president of Haryana BJP, Lal holds a degree in English Honours and a post-graduate degree in Mathematics. He has served as professor in different government colleges in Haryana between 1964 and 1991. His profile on the website of state’s Raj Bhawan reads: “Since 1962 Prof Lal is actively associated with the RSS and held posts in Hisar, Rohtak wing of RSS.”

It goes on to add that he has also been a former chairman of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, Haryana and former national president of BJP disciplinary committee. “During Emergency period in the country in 1976 Prof Lal was sent to jail. He also actively participated in Ram Janmabhoomi Movement,” the profile reads, stating that Lal was elected as MLA from Sirsa constituency in 1996, and became a minister in the Haryana Vikas Party-BJP government in Haryana from 1996-99.