Where was RR Patil?

For nearly fours hours after the bombs went off at the three spots in Mumbai on Wednesday, state home minister RR Patil was missing from security meetings at Mantralaya. He wasn’t even at the blasts sites nor was he available to the media to reassure the citizens of Mumbai.

For nearly fours hours after the bombs went off at the three spots in Mumbai on Wednesday, state home minister RR Patil was missing from security meetings at Mantralaya. He wasn’t even at the blasts sites nor was he available to the media to reassure the citizens of Mumbai.

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On a day when Patil was supposed to be the captain of the ship, chief minister Prithviraj Chavan took charge of the state control room coordinating with the police chief, and talking to union home minister P Chidambaram and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to keep a check on the situation.

Patil’s office kept telling the media that he had left for Nagpur in the evening and due to unavailability of a flight, he was unable to return in time.

This might not be a favourable thing for Patil who is seeing the third terror attack on Mumbai during his tenure as the head of Maharashtra’s security. In fact, he quit as home minister after owning moral responsibility for the failure to thwart the 26/11 terror attack.

The first of the attacks Patil had to combat was the serial blasts on trails on July 11, 2006 where over 200 people lost their lives.

This was followed by the November 26, 2008 terror attack where armed men opened fire on killing 164 people. In December 2008, Patil was forced to resign after making ‘casual’ references to the attack and the subsequent probe.

“People have been seeing only the Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister taking charge of the situation. Patil might be in Nagpur, but the first thing he should be doing is appearing on television and giving people some assurance. It seems as if he was in hiding when the city was burning. He might have a lot of answering to do,” said Vinod Tawde, BJP legislator and state party general secretary.

Shiv Sena legislator and spokesperson Neelam Gorhe backed Tawde, questioning the competence of the people at the helm of affairs.

“It is crystal clear that the state is incapable of managing the law and order. There is no machinery to handle such situations and there have been serious intelligence lapses. The German Bakery blast case is still not solved, and it only shows their incompetence,” Gorhe said.

Senior Home department officials, however, defended Patil saying he was constantly in touch with them and taking a review of the situation and would be visiting the site and the hospitals as soon as he lands in Mumbai.

Around 11.30 pm, Patil did visit the blast sites, but refused to speak to the media.