Politicians are a privileged lot - at least this is what the Thane police's reaction to the fact that most of who took part in the bike rallies of BJP's Kapil Patil and Shiv Sena's Shrikant Shinde were not wearing helmets - signals at. Raising the issue, residents from across Kalyan and Bhiwandi asked whether the Election Commission asked the authorities concerned not to take action for violating traffic rules, or whether the Thane cops chose to be completely ignorant about it.

Patil and Shinde - the current MPs from Kalyan and Bhiwandi - took out bike rallies this week to woo their voters. But in a blatant violation of traffic rules, almost 80 per cent of the participants were seen without helmets. Though the traffic cops were seen on bandobast duty and managing traffic along the route, none bothered to notice the fact that rules were being broken.