Commentary/Mani Shankar Aiyar

Chidambaram did nothing to plan for Rajiv Gandhi's security in the event of conspirators sinking the ship of state

It is this loophole that V P Singh has been trying to wriggle through in justifying before the Jain Commission his decision to let SPG cover for Rajiv Gandhi lapse some two months after Rajiv Gandhi laid down the office of prime minister.

V P Singh's argument will not wash because, as V P Singh himself has had to concede, there was nothing in the SPG Act which precluded his taking the same legislative steps to amend the Act which, since the amendment of September 1991, has provided him, as an ex-PM, with SPG protection.

The point, however, remains: Would you give your brief to a lawyer who fails to address himself to this elementary point when, as minister, he drafts a law on the subject? Confronted in the Jain Commission with the question of why he had not taken this contingency into account in drafting the SPG Bill, Chidambaram tried to slide down the escape hatch of saying that it was not his decision but the Cabinet's -- and he has not even a member of the Cabinet then.

Asked subsequently whether it was not he who was responsible for the Note which went to Cabinet, he was cornered into confessing that he had indeed cleared the Cabinet note. In which case, the question remained: why, as the minister in charge, had he failed to bring this contingency to the attention of the Cabinet? And failed also to point out in the Cabinet note that the proposed legislation would fundamentally alter the position of the SPG from a force to protect the incumbent prime minister to a force that would not only protect any prime minister, whatever the level of threat perception, but more to the point, would legally debar the SPG from extending protection to the person for whom the SPG had been specifically created in the event of that person ceasing to be PM.

The SPG Bill went before Parliament, P Chidambaram at the helm piloting the stormy course of the Bill. In the Rajya Sabha, P Upendra, then of the Telugu Desam, pointedly asked what would happen in the event to Rajiv Gandhi ceasing to be PM. Chidambaram, in his reply, said he would now turn to Upendra's argument when D Ghosh of the CPI-M rose to his feet on another point; by the time that was over, Chidambaram forgot to respond to Upendra -- and so no one ever knew what Chidambaram had in mind by way of a reply to Upendra.

The point is that even if the contingency of Rajiv Gandhi ceasing to be PM had not earlier been raised, and even if it would have been par for the course for Chidambaram to have given Upendra a witty or diverting reply, the fact is that any minister of internal security worth his salt should surely have been alerted to the need to deal with such a contingency in the secretary of the North Block, if not in the glare of the Rajya Sabha's proceedings.

Yet, it would appear from Chidambaram's deposition before the Jain Commission that even after having been specifically alerted to the need for suitable alternative arrangements in the event of Rajiv Gandhi losing the elections, Chidambaram -- and -- Sesshan -- did absolutely nothing about it. They were content to play the politics of mindlessly muttering that the great Indian electorate would never reject the Congress. They totally failed in their professional duty of planning for such a contingency and, if required, going back to Cabinet with their proposals.

Look again closely at the dates. If the SPG Act had been drafted in 1985, when Rajiv Gandhi had just secured three-quarters of the seats in the Lok Sabha, it might have been (barely) forgiveable for the minister of internal security to imagine that Rajiv Gandhi was going to remain PM forever. But by 1988, Rajiv Gandhi had lost every state assembly election bar Tripura since March 1985, the Jan Morcha led by V P Singh was in full cry, and a hundred political conspiracies were being hatched to unseat the ruling party.

As minister of state in the home ministry, Chidambaram was privy to all intelligence reports. Those reports could not have said anything very different to what every editorial was underlining, that Rajiv Gandhi was in serious political trouble and could well be undermined at any time, even by his Congress colleagues let alone the Opposition. Yet, it appears from the Jain Commission records, the minister in charge of Rajiv Gandhi's security did nothing to plan for his charge's security in the event of the conspirators sinking the ship of state.