HYDERABAD, 4 March 2002 —The speaker of the lower house Parliament, G.M.C. Balayogi, was killed yesterday in a helicopter crash in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, his personal assistant confirmed here.
Balayogi was enroute to Andhra Pradesh’s capital Hyderabad when the chopper went down.
“The helicopter, which was a private one, crashed around 7:45 a.m. in the coastal Krishna district,” Balayogi’s assistant said.
Latest reports said the chopper, carrying Balayogi, a personal security guard and the pilot, hit a coconut tree and crashed into a fish pond minutes after taking off, at a village about 350 km east of Hyderabad. Earlier, it was reported that the crash occurred due to poor visibility. The weather was reported to be bad at the time of the crash. “We are still not sure what exactly happened, but there will be in an official inquiry into the accident,” Andhra Pradesh state Home Minister T. Devendra Goud said. Rescue teams who rushed to the crash site had recovered three charred bodies and taken them to a nearby hospital.
Balayogi, 50, was first elected speaker of the lower house in March 1998. He was re-elected speaker when Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s coalition secured a majority in parliament after elections in 1999. He was a familiar figure from the live broadcasts of parliament, which all too often showed him struggling to control rowdy MPs from both the government and opposition benches.
Home Minister L.K. Advani, on a tour of riot-hit areas of Gujarat, expressed his shock at Balayogi’s sudden demise.
“Its very sad news that the speaker has died in a helicopter crash,” Advani told reporters soon after his arrival in Gujarat’s commercial capital Ahmadabad.
“He was one of the youngest politicians in the country and was doing a wonderful job in the last four years as speaker,” Advani said.
The leader of the opposition in parliament and president of the Congress party, Sonia Gandhi said: “He earned the respect of the house and his initiatives in bringing orderliness in our deliberations won him universal respect.”
Balayogi’s capacity to iron out differences among various political parties was exceptional, Sonia was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India.
Somnath Chatterjee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) said Balayogi would be remembered for the “impartiality,” with which he conducted parliamentary proceedings.
“It is unbelievable that he is no more,” Chatterjee said. “He was always very cordial, the way he discharged his duties endeared him to all. He was a very effective speaker,” he added.
Balayogi, who belonged to the Dalit (lower caste) community, was a lawyer from Andhra Pradesh. He first entered politics in the mid-1980s and joined the regional Telegu Desam Party (TDP), which is currently providing crucial outside support to Vajpayee’s central coalition government.
There would be two days of mourning and the national flag would fly at half-mast, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan told reporters.
The dead body of Balayogi will be kept at Parliament House in New Delhi today to allow MPs and leaders to pay their respect.
It will be brought Monday evening to Amlapuram, the Lok Sabha constituency in Andhra Pradesh he represented. The funeral will be held at Balayogi’s native village, Yedurulanka in East Godavari district.
The body of pilot Capt. G.V. Menon is being sent to his native city of Bangalore.
