20 May 2002

NO MORE SPG SECURITY FOR FORMER PMs

From Jal Khambata

NEW DELHI: An ordinance is on the anvil to withdraw the highest Special Protection Group (SPG) security to all former prime ministers from June 1 but to continue it for Congress President Sonia Gandhi and her children -- Rahul and Priyanka -- in view of persisting threat perceptions to them from terrorist outfits.

A draft Ordinance has been forwarded to President K R Narayanan for signatures to withdraw the SPG security to P V Narasimha Rao, H D Deve Gowda and Inder Kumar Gujral. It may perhaps be the last Ordinance Narayanan will be promulgating during his current tenure.

The ordinance seeks to drastically slash the SPG security available to a former Prime Minister and family members for ten years after relinquishing the office. It proposes that the SPG protection shall be available for only one year from the date of demitting office and for only three months in case of his family members.

The SPG security has been already withdrawn in case of Chandra Shekhar and V P Singh. Alike them, the three other former Prime Ministers will get a VIP protection by Delhi Police which will act as a nodal agency for arranging their security whenever they travel to other states by contacting police of the respective states.

Sources in the Prime Minister's Office said a Bill to amend the Special Protection Group (SPG) Act was to be moved during the budget session of Parliament but the wash-out of Parliament proceedings for days together on account of the Gujarat violence compelled the Government to hold it back and then enforce it through an ordinance.

The SPG Act enacted in 1985 to set up an elite force to provide the highest level of security in the light of the assassination of Indira Gandhi was originally meant to provide protection to only the Prime Minister but it went through four amendments during the successive governmens to extend the SPG security cover not only to the Prime Minister but also to former Prime Ministers.

The SPG's senior officers had approached Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to point out that extension of its network to protect so many former Prime Ministers and their family members had put strain on its network and as such they were not able to concentrate on protecting the Prime Minister, the prime purpose for which their elite force was raised.

The SPG at present has a strength of 3500 crack commandos and it is attached to the Union Cabinet Secretariat which coordinates with the state governments during the visits of Prime Minister and also receives lots of logistic support from Ministries of Railways, Defence and Civil Aviation for transporting bullet proof cars to various centres during the visits of PM. END