Journalism of Courage
His security must be stepped up to the highest levels. SPG cover would not be too much to ask.
Serial bombs blasted across Patna on Sunday,as the Gujarat chief minister and the BJPs prime ministerial candidate,Narendra Modi,addressed a teeming rally of tens of thousands of supporters in Gandhi Maidan. While the BJP has squarely blamed the Bihar police for security lapses before and after the incidents,for failing to cordon off the blast sites or even frisk those entering the maidan,the state police has pointed to its own constraints. Apart from the pity of six lives meaninglessly lost,security forces must consider what might have been if these attacks had been closer to the man at the centre of the event,Narendra Modi.
The campaign for the Lok Sabha election has taken on a menacing edge with this event. Earlier,Rahul Gandhi brought up the deaths of his grandmother and father,and suggested that he,too,may be killed in similar violence. The electoral campaign must be insulated from such dangers. Narendra Modi is the prime ministerial candidate of Indias leading opposition party,and he deserves the most impregnable protection the state can offer. His safety cannot be trusted to the variable standards of the police in each state he visits. The services of the Special Protection Group,which protects former and serving prime ministers and their families,would not be too much to ask,even if that requires amending the act to include this special exigency.
