Why I Vented At Minister KJ Alphons About VVIP Movement

My question to you, everyone, is how long will a common Indian have to pay for VVIP culture? On Monday, our flight was rescheduled and there was no word on when my IndiGo flight to Kolkata would finally take off. And because of the delay, I virtually missed my scheduled Kolkata-Patna flight. I was trying to reach Patna for my nephew's funeral. So I went up to union minister KJ Alphons at the Imphal airport and asked him to do something to help me out to ensure flights are not held up. The airspace had been closed for hours because of the President's arrival. The minister was at the airport. I went up to him to seek intervention. My actions were not based in anger; it was out of sheer helplessness. Think of those people who are old and physically challenged and can't run around. Think of people who are from lower middle-class families and will miss their connecting flights. Should we ignore all this?

It was nice to see the minister giving his reactions and being calm, but neither in Imphal, nor in TV studios later, did he respond to my questions. Do you know of any suggestion which he has made which will save us from a similar ordeal in the future? My question to everyone is how long will a common Indian have to suffer for our VVIPs' travel? If ministers take the pledge that they will not let anyone suffer on account of their travel, then a message will go down that every passenger is your priority.

Let me tell you, nothing was planned and my outburst was spur-of-the-moment, brought on by spotting the minister. Because I was trying to attend to a tragedy in the family, I thought he might have some solution to our problems, but he has none. I didn't realize somebody was shooting my interaction with him on a mobile camera and came to know of this only yesterday when some friends informed me.

So far, there's no culture of airlines in our country coming forward to help passengers whose flights are rescheduled and cancelled because of VVIP movement. The time has come for airlines to evolve a policy which is passenger-friendly, because right now, their attitude towards passengers is very arrogant. I had to pay from my pocket to reorganize my flight to Patna. Why should a commoner pay in this way for a VVIP's travel? It means you're fleecing us and taking advantage of the situation.

The reactions of family and friends to my video going viral is mixed. Since I'm still a medical student doing my masters, a section of friends are concerned that I may be targeted for my actions. This concerns me, but I hope everyone will see the reasoning - if you don't stop VVIP culture, well, today it was me, tomorrow there will be somebody else. So please fix the system where a common Indian doesn't have to suffer anymore. 



(Dr Nirala Singh is Junior Resident, M.S OBG at Regional Institute of Medical Sciences, Imphal)

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