[Assam] Panicky Politicians -Sentinel Editorial

[Ram Sarangapani]

Don't know whether to laugh or cry?  This is the state of the State!

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Panicky Politicians
As we reported yesterday, the State Home Department has shortlisted 217
Congress leaders as VVIPs/VIPs in the wake of the latest ULFA threat to the
ruling Congress. The most obvious question is: how have as many as 217
Congress leaders become VVIPs or VIPs overnight? Just because the ULFA has
threatened the Congress? Have these shortlisted leaders been threatened
individually? Or are they really the leaders of the masses, with a wonderful
track record of performance, who the ULFA would kill any day? There seems to
be a crisis now: how would one provide these new avatars — 217 VVIPs/VIPs —
bullet-proof luxury at a time when the State government is in possession of
only 52 bullet-proof cars, that too only on paper as most of them are out of
order? More important, over 5,000 Congressmen have applied for security
cover, and a bullet-proof car might be the wish of each one of them. Now the
most important question is: what would happen if non-VVIPs ask for security
cover or bullet-proof cars? What would happen if ordinary masses demand so?
Can there be personal security cover or bullet-proof cars for the entire
population of the State? As a matter of fact, it is mostly ordinary men,
women and children — all non-VVIPs, all absolutely innocent — who have been
killed in militant attacks over the years. So do they not have a stronger
reason for ask for security cover or bullet-proof cars? How many such
bullet-proof cars can the government — in a welfare state that it claims to
have helped build — provide? Let one not say now that ordinary people do not
need security, and that they are very very important persons (VVIPs, is not
it?) only during elections. It is these ordinary people who can survive well
without being 'led' by panicky politicians.
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