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20 days since the Mumbai terror attacks, our elected 'leaders' have left Mumbai unguarded. Again. For the next two weeks, all the ministers from the CM down, top bureaucrats and key cops will be 900 km away from Mumbai, attending the winter session of the state Legislature
Just over a fortnight after Mumbai saw its worst terror attack, the megapolis has been left almost unmanned, by the political, bureaucratic and police leadership.
For the next two weeks, the chief minister, the home minister and the deputy chief minister along with the entire state cabinet, will be 900 km away, in the state's 'winter' capital, Nagpur.
This political pilgrimage, held annually in Nagpur as a tradition since it has to be given its second capital respect (see box), officially costs Rs 100 crore of our money. Incidentally, while all the elected leaders of the state will be in Nagpur, also away from Mumbai would be the governor, who will be on an official visit of the Vidarbha region.
Well, the list is not over. Accompanying our political leaders are Maharashtra's top bureaucrats. Leading the list are Chief Secretary Johnny Joseph (who told MiD DAY just last week that they had no inkling whatsoever of the attack on Mumbai and the city needs to be more prepared for such attacks), Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Chitkala Zutshi, Principal Home Secretary Ajit Parasnis and Additional Chief Secre-tary (Urban Development) Manu Srivastava. The list is too long to fit into this copy.
One would have expected the men in uniform to stay behind. But the state legislature would have questions on the terror attack. So, the state's top cop, A N Roy, is away from Mumbai. In Nagpur with him is
D Sivanandan, chief of the Maharashtra Police Intelligence. Joint Commiss-ioner for Crime, Rakesh Maria and Police Commissioner Hasan Gafoor are expected to join them.
Needless to say, some of the best commandos of the Mumbai police and approximately 4,000 cops, have been camping in Nagpur for the past few days, to protect the state's elected leaders.
Not in mumbai
Netas
Chief minister
Deputy CM
Home minister
All 288 MLAs
Cops
Director general of police
Intelligence chief
Crime Branch chief
Top commandos
4,000 policemen
Bureaucrats
Chief secretary
Additional chief secretary (Home)
Additional chief secy (Urban Development)
Principal home secy All eggs in one basket
It is an old management funda. All eggs should never be kept in one basket. The entire stock can get damaged in one crash. It's the same logic for why the senior management of any responsible organisation never travel by the same flight, together. "De facto, the only persons who can be seen following this basic rule are the chiefs of Army, Navy and Air Force, who never travel by air, together, in the interest of the nation", says Himanshu Panth, management consultant.
You need to have back-ups in case of a calamity. While no one says it openly, murmurs have been heard in police circles about the manner in which top cops Hemant Karkare, Ashok Kamte and Vijay Salaskar took the same jeep during the terror attack. In one go, we lost three brave officers. One had expected the state government to learn a bitter lesson from the recent casualty. Yet, planeloads of leaders have been travelling to Nagpur in the last two days. And for the next two weeks, all of them would be stationed within a radius of two kilometres.
Why Nagpur?
The second political capital of Maharashtra is Nagpur where the winter assembly session is held every year since the state came into existence in 1960.
Around 1,000 bureaucrats including the chief secretary, additional chief secretaries, principal secretaries and secretaries of every department, ministers, 288 MLAs attend this session.
Around 5,000 policemen are deployed on protection duty in Nagpur during this meet and an average of Rs 100 crore is spent on the winter session every year.
In 1960, a resolution was passed that a three-week meet of the state's bureaucrats would be held every year in Nagpur. However, the session usually ends within a fortnight. |
