VIPs present a Catch-22 situation best avoided

AHMEDABAD, June 11: Sonia Gandhi ventured into the marsh and slush of Kandla for only a 50-minute look at the greatest natural calamity sinc...

AHMEDABAD, June 11: Sonia Gandhi ventured into the marsh and slush of Kandla for only a 50-minute look at the greatest natural calamity since she took to active politics. But she rested at the Bhuj air strip for three hours because her plane developed a snag. And all the while a battalion of district police and NSG stood guard, with the additional collector in tow.

The Bhuj administration, already stretched to the limit, was at breaking point playing host to Union Home minister L K Advani. Collector, SP and commissioners were all there, a Praetorian Guard for Advani and the accompanying ministers from Gandhinagar and bureaucrats from Delhi. The best time for bureaucrats to further careers, one might say. At Jamnagar yesterday a whole truck load of policemen guarded chief minister Keshubhai8217;s chopper for seven hours as he went to Porbandar and came back.

And all this while the victims, the tired, cold and hungry who had already suffered a lot, unobtrusively and meekly made their way inland on whatever transport they could find. They didn8217;t bother waiting for the administration because the administration was busy telling the union home minister and the union relief commissioner stories about how they had been rescued

.All this begged the question, Are these high-profile trips really necessary? What concrete results do they produce? Some of these visits are definitely necessary, but care should be taken at the same time to ensure that the district administration is not disturbed in its relief work. These are some of the questions being asked by both victims and relief workers.

8220;I think my visit was absolutely necessary. I think journalists should also go there, it will only have a beneficial effect,8221; said L K Advani, trying to play down the question. He was evasive enough to avoid answering what immediate benefit it would bring about.

Advani even managed to see the lighter side of things. He related a story about how the Jamnagar Collector forcibly woke people up in the middle of the night preceding the storm, packed them into buses and brought them to safe places and thus saved their bodies and souls. Incidentally, from the same Jamnagar coast there are reports that 20 fishermen are missing because they had gone to the sea on the day of the storm as they had not been warned.

8220;Why can8217;t these visits be like the visit of the army generals to the forward posts? Only those soldiers required are present; the rest are on duty,8221; asked a BSF Assistant commandant employed in relief work at Kandla.

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8220;It8217;s a Catch-22 situation. The chief minister knows that the administration will be attending to him rather than relief work but if he does not go at all and issues orders from Gandhinagar, the press and the Opposition will accuse him of insensitivity towards the people,8221; says Kuntal Sanghvi, a close associate of Keshubhai Patel.

However, what comes of these visit is sometimes so little that it does not justify anything. First, it shifts the focus during the early period when victims really require help and are totally disoriented. 8220;We always dread these high-profile visitors during times of crisis. The relief amount comes only after survey teams have given their assessment so basically these visits amount to nothing but self publicity,8221; says a bureaucrat.