Beleaguered Union home minister Shivraj Patil is likely to ride out the latest clamour for his head in the aftermath of the spate of bomb blasts in different parts of the country.
NEW DELHI: Beleaguered Union home minister Shivraj Patil is likely to ride out the latest clamour for his head in the aftermath of the spate of bomb blasts in different parts of the country.
Despite the disquiet both within the party and amongst its allies over Patil’s stewardship of the ministry, party insiders believe he will survive the chop primarily on account of the Congress leadership’s reluctance to act against him.
The leadership itself is in a bind. Its reluctance to remove Patil stems from two factors. Dismissing him at this juncture will be interpreted as bowing to pressure from the BJP. Secondly, it will mean a tacit admission of the government’s inept handling of the terror attacks. So Patil, despite attracting flak for his three costume changes while visiting the victims of the Delhi blasts on Saturday, is unlikely to be changed.
High-ranking party leaders point to the numerous occasions in the past when similar demands have been made but the Congress leadership has remained unmoved. On Monday, RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav called on UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and prime minister Manmohan Singh to do something on the issue.
But officially the Congress continues to back its embattled home minister. Party spokesman Abhishek Singhvi said the “blasts were not a referendum on the home minister’s performance”.
Speculation regarding Patil’s future had gathered momentum after his absence from the high-level meeting between Gandhi and party bigwigs on Monday afternoon. Patil incidentally was chairing an international conference on terrorism at Vigyan Bhawan at the time, but it did little to douse the speculations.
The meeting, called by the Congress chief to discuss the series of blasts and the communal violence directed against Christians in parts of the country, was attended by external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee, defence minister AK Antony, her political secretary Ahmed Patel, All India Congress Committee general secretaries Digvijay Singh, Margaret Alva, Janardhan Dwivedi and Veerappa Moily.
Meanwhile, brushing aside speculation that he would be asked to step down, Patil asserted he enjoyed “full blessings” of the Congress president. “Well, I have full blessings of my leader,” he told a television channel. Asked if he was troubled by the fact that he was not called to the party meeting on Monday, Patil said: “Do not put me on the defensive. That is not the style my leader works, my party works. My party’s ethos is to do justice and to see it is done in a manner which contains and control criminal and terrorist activities...”
Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh also rallied to Patil’s defence. “The only crime he (Patil) did was to change his clothes three times (on Saturday). Can you remove him for this?” Singh said.
j_ansari@dnaindia.net
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