A welcome probe: On PM security breach and propaganda

SC should restrain political parties from using any lapse in PM’s security for poll propaganda

Initial inquiries ordered by both governments have been put on hold. However, there is something disquieting about the way an isolated lapse in the Prime Minister’s security is being used to raise the political temperature and garner electoral dividends. It is unfortunate that the attempt on the part of the ruling BJP to fix the blame on the Punjab government, and the Congress which helms it, is continuing even after the Supreme Court appointed an independent committee to probe the incident. Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has made some crude and unwarranted remarks on his Punjab counterpart, Charanjit Singh Channi, demanding Mr. Channi’s arrest and alleging a conspiracy to kill the Prime Minister. It is clear that a divisive narrative is sought to be built by key functionaries of the BJP, as though they have been asked to milk the issue as much as possible in the run-up to the Assembly elections. The petition, which the Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India, N.V. Ramana, agreed to hear early, seemed to be an exercise to put the Punjab government in the dock. However, the Supreme Court has managed to emancipate the litigation from its political overtones and preserve the scope for a dispassionate inquiry. It would be in the fitness of things if the Court took note of the attempts to use the incident for electoral propaganda and restrained political parties from the resort to needless rhetoric.

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