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A protectee rides bike at 100 km/hr, Amit Shah tells Lok Sabha. BJP sets up a Twitter quiz
The union home minister Amit Shah said contrary to the impression being created, the government hadn’t stopped providing security to the Gandhis but only replaced the SPG with CRPF personnel.
Home Minister Amit Shah launched a sharp counter-offensive at the Congress on Wednesday over criticism that political vendetta had driven the move to replace the Gandhi family’s SPG security cover with the CRPF.
Shah said contrary to the impression being created, the government hadn’t stopped providing security to the Gandhis but only replaced the SPG with CRPF personnel. Also, he said this wasn’t the first time that the government had withdrawn SPG security cover from a former prime minister or his family.
The home minister also underscored that when the SPG security cover was withdrawn from former prime ministers Chandra Shekhar, IK Gujral and Manmohan Singh, no one had uttered a word. In the case of Dr Singh, Shah told the house that the country’s intelligence chief had gone to brief the former prime minister about the change and had been told to do what was right.
Amit Shah, while replying to the debate on the change to the Special Protection Group Act, also pointed to the many violations of security protocols by the protectees. Shah also singled out the former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who he said, had after 2015 had undertaken domestic and foreign trips on hundreds of occasions without informing the SPG.
The SPG Amendment Bill, which gives legal cover to the government’s decision to withdraw SPG protection from Sonia Gandhi and her children Rahul and Priyanka, seeks to allow the force to only protect the prime minister and his family living with him. It also caps security to former prime ministers to a maximum of five years.
As things stand, the amendment only impacts the three members of the Gandhi family and Manmohan Singh.
Amit Shah rubbed it in.
“There are some protectees… They ride expensive bikes at 100 km/hr in Lutyens’ Delhi. Security cars are left behind. Now what can I say officially about this. Our only intention is… the government doesn’t act with a vindictive approach. But when you enter public life, you have to act accordingly,” Shah said to cheers from the treasury benches.
Shah did not identify the protectee that he was referring to, saying it would lead to another uproar from the opposition benches.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party later put out a 40-second video of Amit Shah’s speech and asked people if they had figured out who the home minister, also the BJP president, was referring to.
The government insists that the decision to replace SPG security cover was taken after a threat assessment. Congress leader Manish Tewari, who opened the debate from his party’s side, underscored that threat assessment was not an exact science and go wrong.
Shah, however, assured members that security personnel of paramilitary forces such as the CRPF who are deployed on such duties are usually staffers who have served with the SPG or have trained with them.
The Lok Sabha later voted in favour of the amendment to the SPG Act amid a walkout by the Congress that has accused the government of politicking over security to its leaders.
Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said his party and others who had spoken against the amendment were all for upgrading PM Narendra Modi’s security, but the minister’s speech has made it clear that the change in motivated by political vendetta.