I have full blessings of my leader: Shivraj Patil

NEW DELHI; Brushing aside speculation that he would be asked to step down, Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil asserted on Monday that he enjoyed "full blessings" of Congress President Sonia Gandhi.
      
"Well, I have full blessings of my leader," he told CNN-IBN when asked if he enjoyed the confidence of his leader.
    
Asked if he felt troubled over the fact that he was not called by Gandhi at a meeting of senior party leaders here this morning, Patil said "do not put me on 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 terrorists activities and at the same time does give any opportunity to human rights violation," he said.
    
Patil is under attack over his ministry's handling of internal security and even some senior Congress leaders said to be critical of the minister, whose attention to sartorial preferences even during the night of Saturday blasts in Delhi have drawn flak.
     
Refuting charges of intelligence failure, the Home Minister said in all incidents information was given.
     
"It was available with us in Delhi also. But what was not available was the timing, the place and the method to be used for the purpose," he said.
    
Patil said that difficulties arose in the absence of actionable information on the timing and place of the planned attacks.
    
To a question, he said the Centre had information about the possiblility of terror attack in the national capital even before Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi conveyed it.