Go home, Home Minister

Chanakya often used to stress in his writings - "Having no ruler is better than having a bad one". Had he been alive today the first person he would have applied this maxim to would be the current home minister.

What’s the responsibility of a Home Minister ? – even an illiterate would know. Unfortunately our hon. Home minister doesn’t know it himself. Home minister is the country’s highest authority responsible for maintaining the internal security and law and order. It’s an authority to which all the internal-security forces and police-forces in the country directly or indirectly report to and look up to for guidance and orders. But what a tragedy - at the very helm of this hierarchy is a leader who has exercised this authority - to refrain from harming the terrorists rather than - to crack down heavily on them. Why ? Just to keep a particular section of Indian societly happy. What a shame.

While Patil was in-charge of the country’s internal security, hundreds of people were being killed in several blasts across the nation:

October 2005: New Delhi - 62 killed, hundreds injured.
Mar 2006: Varanasi - 20 killed.
July 2006: Mumbai trains – over 200 killed and 700 injured.
September 2006: Malegaon(MH) - 30 killed, around 100 injured.
May 2007: Hyderabad - 11 killed.
August 2007: Hyderabad - 32 killed, 35 injured.
October 2007: Rajasthan - 2 killed.
January 2008: CRPF camp, Rampur – 8 killed.
May 13, 2008: Jaipur - 65 dead, over 150 injured.
July 25, 2008: Bangalore – 2 killed, 12 injured
July 26, 2008: Ahmedabad - 56 killed, over 200 injured
September 2008: New Delhi – 30 dead, 90 injured
October 2008: Assam - 78 dead, over 300 injured

Terrorists have thrived in his rule. Intelligence failure has been alarming. And what has the Home minister done each time ? Nothing more than visiting the blasts sites (a day or two after the blast – when Sonia gets time to visit them) and issuing the same old statements like - “tehkikat chal rahi hai” (investigation is going on) – and making sure that he pleases Soniaji by mentioning without failure 'how she has been prompt to visit the blasts sites’. If this is what Patil thinks is the job of a home minister, then it’s time for him to pack his bag and go home. The same old excuses, same old statements every time a new blast happens. When you see him talking on TV clueless and with utter lack of confidence, it makes your blood boil. An RTI query should be initiated to check how he has been spending his time in office. It probably will reveal that he has been killing time all the time, apart from bowing down to Sonia every now and then.

What is most infuriating is his extreme softness towards the terrorists because they belong to minority community in almost all the cases. Look at the Afzal Guru case. Patil has been avoiding executing the SC’s order (of hanging Guru) in order to not hurt the minority community. In contrast, the case of Sarbarjeet - who by all indications seems to be innocent - did not move Patil’s heart even a bit. When asked for Center's intervention to save Sarbarjeet, the home minister replied - “if you ask for hanging of Afzal Guru, how can you ask for mercy for Sarbarjeet?”. A classic example of only caring about minority sentiment.

Another example: After Jaipur blasts, when the Rajasthan government sent his ministry a strongly worded letter asking its permission to allow dealing toughly with illegal Bangladeshi migrants, the home minister replied that the Bangladeshi immigrants be treated as victimized refugees and treated softly. Needless to say, this infuriated the BJP-led Rajasthan government.

Talking of illegal immigrants, the home mininster has been blatantly ignoring the fact that 'internal security' also means keeping out illegal immigrants as well as 'legal' potential immigrant terrorists. Look at the following statistics of legal Pakistani entrants who have gone missing during Shivraj's tenure, after their visas expired:

7043 in 2005, 7650 in 2006, 7404 in 2007, 9636 till date in 2008

Extremely troubling facts. Clearly an indication of possibility of ISI taking legal route (through legitimate visas) to spread terrorists in India. While Army is doing its best to foil infiltration bids across LOC, Shivraj Patil is doing his best to foil efforts of the Army, by his inaction. As a minister he must be getting security updates like these every morning, but he seems to be caring only about security issues of the Gandhi clan. For instance the home minister promptly took strong view of the slackness in the security provided by UP government to Rahul Gandhi during his recent visit to Kanpur. Shivrajji, you could have diverted atleast 10 percent of that promptness to addressing security concerns of hardworking people of this country.

Minutes after the recent Delhi blasts when Delhi was burning and when the home minister was expected to rush to the site immediately, what did our dear home minister do ? Took time to change his clothes twice before briefing the nation on these blasts. And he visited the blasts only after Sonia found time to visit it herself. What a looser. Does he even have a mind and soul of his own ? He would be quicker in attending Sonia's birthday party than rushing to a blast site. Following the Delhi blasts, when Sonia convened a high level Congress party meeting to review the security situation in the country, she intentionally skipped inviting Patil, who, as a home minister should have been the real in-charge of such a meeting. Pressure had been building up for his resignation to which Patil replied – “I will not quit as my leader has faith in me” - may be, but the people of the country don’t. So please step down Mr. Patil. Patil also said “I will quit if my party wishes so”. On top of that, Patil has been blatantly rejecting pressures to even amend existing terror laws in order to make them more effective. On the contrary he has been saying that existing laws are enough. Well the laws may be enough, but your actions are not. As one congress leader rightly said "we dont need more laws, we need more action from the home minister". A non-performer like him, who seriously lacks the will to tackle terrorism in the country – should actually be expelled with humiliation of highest order before he offers to resign himself (which I don't think will happen as Patil doesn’t have the guts nor the humility to accept his miserable failures).

To Modi's claim that 'he had given PM a hint about Delhi blasts before they happened', Patil reacted saying that 'his ministry had the information even before Modi had it'. Really ? Then why didn't you act Shivrajji ? Were you waiting for your madam's permission ? You should learn a thing or two from Narendra Modi, from the way he made Gujarat police crack Ahmedabad blasts case in record time. But before he learns that, he should be removed from Office. Maharashtra should publically disown Shivraj Patil and India should expel him to Bangladesh which tirelessly keeps pushing illegal immigrants into India to whom Patil has managed to provide a safe heaven.