The serial bomb blast at Hyderabad on Saturday night, which claimed over 40 lives, is a clear act of terrorism deserving the strongest condemnation. Only in May, a similar incident took place at the historic Mosque in Hyderabad claiming 11 innocent lives. Again in September 2006, at least 30 people were killed and 100 injured in twin blasts at a mosque in Malegaon in western India. In the same year in July, seven bombs on Mumbai’s commuter trains killed more than 200 and injured over 700 others. What is clear from this chronology is that the number of terror attacks has only increased in the last two years. There are now reports that after Iraq, India has the next biggest casualty arising out of terror attacks. Even closer home, the Northeast region has not been spared either. The public of Dimapur, Nagaland will never forget October 2, 2004 when the deadly terrorist attack took place in the Hongkong market area, killing over 30 innocent people. The facial expression of Shivraj Patil visiting the blast site the next day remains the same even after the latest attack in Hyderabad—that of a clueless and tentativeness Home Minister.
It was not surprising therefore that the national media had already dubbed him to be a failure in terms of managing the country’s internal security. Patil may disagree, but even the Prime Minister and Congress President Sonia Gandhi must have known by now that if there was one (dispensable) Union Minister who must be told to go, it had to be the Home Minister. And putting forward Shivraj Patil’s name as the Congress candidate for the Presidential polls was clear enough indication that the party high command was egging him to move out. It is another matter that the Left, which finally decided on Pratibha Patil, did not want the Union Home Minister being elevated to the highest office in the country. Poor Patil must be distraught with all the terror attacks and he will surely be calculating the number of blasts that has taken place under his assignment. But why is the Union Home Minister not resigning after the string of lapses to the country’s internal security? Can he not take any moral responsibility?
The Prime Minister must not allow the country’s internal security to be compromised under any circumstances. And if removing Patil, from that the Cabinet or at least the Home portfolio, can ensure better efficiency in the running of the country’s security apparatus, then a more capable person must be brought in as a replacement for the beleaguered Patil who has remained completely out of sorts in his role. A Home Minister in particular should represent strength and security. Clearly Patil does not have the assertiveness and other requisite qualities to look after the crucial area of homeland security. He has also never been a Chief Minister and according to political experts, it is crucial for a home minister to have been chief minister: that’s where the nitty-gritty of law and order management is learnt. So it was clear to everyone that Patil needed to be given a job but that the home ministry was not it. Hopefully, the Prime Minister will be able to correct this anomaly in the interest of national security.
