Congress-led UPA denies SPG cover to Narendra Modi

Ahmedabad, 7 November 2013

The Congress-led union government has rejected the Bharatiya Janata Party’s demand for SPG security cover for its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi matching that provided to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Security provided by the Special Protection Group (SPG) is available only for the prime minister, former prime minister and, as an exceptional case, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son, daughter and son-in-law.

Responding to the BJP’s demand, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said the matter was determined by law, and there was a law under which such security was provided only to the prime minister.

But BJP argues that the law earlier twice. It was ammended to give SPC security to Sonia Gandhi, her son Rahul, daughter Priyanka and son-in-law Robert Vadra.

Congress claims that Sonia and family enjoy SPG cover because former PM’s family status.

But then if this is the logic, former PM PV Narsimha rao and other former PM families are not protected by SPG cover.

Congress-led UPA’s denial to provide SPG cover to Modi is raising doubts over motives of central govt
because Modi is a person on every potential assassin’s list.

Earlier, Minister of State for Home R P N Singh said the central government provides security to people depending on the threat perception, and the Gujarat chief minister already had Z-category National Security Guard (NSG) cover.

Singh was criticized and attacked on social media platforms for politicizing the issue with factually wrong tweet. Sing tweeted:The VP Singh govt supported by the BJP downgraded Rajiv Gandhi’s security. We witnessed the tragic outcome.

The fact is that when Rajiv Gandhi was killed, it was not VP Singh’s govt supported by BJP but Chandrashekhar govt supported by Congress in power in centre.

BJP parliamentary board seeks adequate security to Modi