This is with reference to the edit-page article, ‘Chidambaram no better than Shivraj Patil’ (ADC, Feb. 20) by Virendra Kapoor, in which the writer has been very uncharitable to the former while admitting candidly that the latter was a ‘PR disaster, changing his attire amidst crises every other hour’. Tightening up our complicated security system is not an easy job since several ‘sleeper cells’ of extremist elements have been allowed to grow for a long time. With non-Congress governments ruling several states, if he comes up with some useful proposals to have a single anti-terrorism intelligence agency like the National Counter Terrorism Centre, their chief ministers raise a hue and cry immediately to stall the same.
In the present political scenario where these states are averse to anything coming from the Centre, nobody will be able to do any better. In fact it is nothing short of a miracle that this Harvard-educated lawyer in white dhoti has been able to survive still with a sane mind the daily battering that he has been receiving from our main opposition party for so long.
— Dr. V. Subramanyan, Dombivli