The Home Minister of India is either unmindful of the consequences of what he says or is incapable of talking sense. He continues to embarrass the Government and compromise the nation

After the public display of his ineptitude, Mr Shivraj Patil would be doing a great favour to the Government in which he is the Home Minister if he were to resign from the Cabinet. By equating the death sentence given to Sarabjit Singh, an Indian in a Pakistani jail, to the pending execution of Mohammed Afzal, the mastermind of the terrorist attack on Parliament House, Mr Patil has not only displayed his ineptitude but also virtually sealed the fate of the poor Indian languishing in a Pakistani jail for 17 years now. Worse, he has contradicted his Government's stand that Sarbajit Singh's is a case of mistaken identity and there are several circumstances that justify his release.

The UPA Government is quite embarrassed as External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee has recently impressed upon his Pakistani counterpart during his visit to Islamabad that there is a strong case for Sarabjit Singh's release. Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, too, has responded by recommending his pardon. By equating an unfortunate Indian to a hardened terrorist, Mr Patil has embarrassed the UPA Government so much that it has to take refuge under the usual excuse that the Home Minister was misquoted!

If Mr Patil does not step down, thanks to his known loyalty towards the Nehru-Gandhi family, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should demand his resignation from the Cabinet.

Time is ticking away for Sarabjit Singh. With Mr Patil's statement even the Pakistan Government will find it difficult to pardon him. The Government of India has been trying at various levels to get relief for Sarabjit Singh, but its own Home Minister has undone all its efforts. In this context, it is the Prime Minister's responsibility to ask his Home Minister to pay the price for this ineptitude by contradicting the stand of a Government of which he is a senior member.

There is no end to such embarrassment for the UPA Government. The latest being the Home Ministry's reminder to Karnataka Governor Rameshwar Thakur that he cannot invite BJP leader BS Yeddiyurappa to take oath as Chief Minister because President's rule has not been revoked. The communiqué to the Governor was obviously meant to delay the swearing in ceremony. Senior BJP leader LK Advani had to talk to the Prime Minister to get the Governor to do the right thing.

The Home Ministry's justification for trying to delay the swearing in ceremony is that technically the invite by the Governor must follow and not precede the lifting of President's rule. This is nothing more than legal quibbling, something that petty lawyers resort to when all their tactics fail to save their client.

The notification for the election is issued by the President and the Governor, as his agent in the State, is aware of the process of electing a new Government. Once the election results are out and there is no doubt who is the winner, the Governor takes steps to advise the President to lift the Central rule as per the Constitution. These steps involve finding who is the leader of the winning party and establishing to the Governor's satisfaction that he has the sustainable numbers.

Why did the Home Ministry tell the Karnataka Governor to wait for some more time before inviting the BJP to take over the State Government? Political analysts believe that the Home Minister's advise to the Governor to delay the invite to the BJP legislature party leader was meant to see whether there was any chance of manipulation and horse trading.

The Home Minister's ineptitude and crude manoeuvring do not seem to end here. After the Jaipur bombings, Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje disclosed that the Home Ministry had advised the State Government to round up the Bangladeshi immigrants and put them in camps, besides paying for their livelihood. Later when Mr Patil insisted that he did not make this suggestion, Ms Vasundhara Raje had to confound him with the evidence of the Home Ministry's letter to her.

The significant aspect of this spat is that the BJP Government has regularly been ringing the bell on illegal Bangladeshi immigrants; this, however, was not good enough to wake the Centre up. The reason is obvious -- the Congress does not want to dilute its electoral appeal to Muslims.

A week after the Jaipur bombings when the police took into custody some of the people who might have been connected with the bombings, there was this usual uproar by a section of the Muslim leadership that "innocents" were being implicated. This same cry was heard after the Hyderabad bombings.

The Congress apparently refuses to learn even after the electorate in State after State throws it out of power, the latest being Karnataka where terrorism was an issue and the Congress was unable to answer the questions that people posed to it. Mr Patil's argument that there is no easy way out and that there could only be a long-term effort to contain terrorism is not liked by the people. After all, they have seen in Punjab that strong measures alone can curb terrorism.

Coutesy: www.dailypioneer.com, May 30, 2008