As minister in-charge of internal security, his concerns should not be guided by affiliations to the politics of the Congress party. But first perhaps, he needs to correct his sense of history. When Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated on 21 May in Sriperumbudur 1991 while campaigning for general elections, Chandra Shekhar was Prime Minister. RPN Singh should look elsewhere to find his answer to the question of who should be blamed for the kind of security Rajiv Gandhi had. The situation leading to his death has been effectively narrated in John Abraham’s movie, Madras Café. An old time Congress leader told Firstpost that after Rajiv Gandhi was ousted from power, the Congressmen, more prominently KK Tiwari used to vociferously demand SPG security to Rajiv Gandhi but both VP Singh and Chandra Shekhar had disagreed. Here are some facts. Congress leaders should get to the records of parliamentary proceedings. The SPG Act was enacted by the Rajiv Gandhi government in June 1988, in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination. The bill was piloted in Parliament by P Chidambaram, in his then avatar of Minister of Internal security and personnel. During the course of the debate, the opposition members (who were in a minuscule minority in the face of a brute three fourth majority) kept demanding that the purview of bill be extended to all leaders who faced a grave threat perception, instead of just the Prime Minister. Chidambaram, a senior leader pointed out, was completely unrelenting and the bill was passed with singular purpose, providing proximate security to the Prime Minister. It was on this basis that when Rajiv Gandhi lost power and Congress started demanding SPG protection, that Janata Dal leaders would sarcastically tell them of the position they had taken just one and a half years before. As subsequent events show us, they were wrong. Rajiv Gandhi was killed. The Congress then demanded an amendment in the SPG Act to give security to Sonia Gandhi and her children. The Act was further amended by the Narasimha Rao government in 1991 to give SPG protection to all former Prime Ministers and their immediate family members for a period of 10 years from the date on which the former Prime Minister ceased to hold office. SPG cover for any period beyond this is based on an assessment to see if the level of threat justifies the continued provision of proximate security. Members of the Gandhi-Nehru family are the exception to that general rule. The Act has since been amended four times. This really means that an Act (SPG), which has been amended four times in 17 years, can’t be amended one more time. The government can keep SPG as an exclusive force for proximate security to the PM, but it can also create a separate force of similar calibre to provide security to other top notch leaders whose threat perception and related security issue is a national concern or issue. The UPA government, which has on too many occasions chosen to go the ordinance route on various issues, can’t press for one more ordinance to extend security cover to Narendra Modi or any other leader. But throwing the rule book is not always a good solution.
Posted on: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 02:58:25 +0000
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