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been already withdrawn in case of Chandra Shekhar and V P Singh.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