Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann has been flying in the state-owned helicopter or in chartered jets to visit Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh along with AAP's Delhi leaders including Arvind Kejriwal to boost the party’s poll prospects.
A right to information (RTI) activist, Manik Goyal disclosed that Bhagwant Mann accompanied by AAP's top leaders, used the state helicopter three times to visit Himachal Pradesh to campaign for the party.
The Punjab government hired private jets twice for the CM to visit Gujarat. Again, he was accompanied by AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal and others to hold rallies there. The first two-day visit to Gujarat cost Rs 44 lakh, while the second 3-day visit incurred an expenditure of Rs 55 lakh.
The AAP government in Punjab has refused to give information about the expenditure on the CM's air travel by chopper and chartered jets, which Goyal wanted to know through an RTI.
Goyal had asked the director of civil aviation, Punjab to provide information about the expenses on CM's air travel, especially from March 11 to June 20, this year.
The department, vide its letter dated August 3 refused to provide any information, saying that since the matter related to the security of the CM, it was out of the public domain.
Mann when confronted by reporters said, "this question does not relate to people's welfare and need not be answered." Before coming to power, AAP leaders had been condemning the previous chief ministers for misusing the state helicopter at public expense.
Harpal Cheema, now the finance minister, is on record with a tweet assailing the then CM Charanjit Singh Channi for "splurging public money" by hiring a private jet to go to Delhi to meet the party high command. Congress leaders Navjot Sidhu and Sukhjinder Randhawa accompanied Channi.
The department of civil aviation earlier had been sharing with RTI activists the details of expenditure incurred by the then chief ministers Parkash Singh Badal, Captain Amarinder Singh, and Charanjit Singh Channi on their air travel.
Badal and his coterie spent Rs 121 crore on air travel during their 10-year rule. On average, they used government aircraft for 2 hours daily. Every one hour of air travel was calculated to cost the state exchequer Rs 4.5 lakh.
Captain Amarinder Singh too had been using the state helicopter indiscriminately. He flew in the chopper to attend party meetings in Delhi, or his bungalow in Chail, Himachal Pradesh. He even went to his Moti Bagh residence in Patiala in a helicopter which is only 60 kilometers from Chandigarh by road. But, his total expenditure on air travel during four and a half years of rule is not available. However, as per Congress's claim, he spent Rs 1 crore only for using the helicopter during the first 9 months of coming to power.
