Home Minister P. Chidambaram’s admission on 25 June that he was not informed by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) about the suspected bugging attempt of Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s office last year is yet another indication of the UPA government’s dysfunctional security management. He tried defending this by saying that he was not informed about it as it was a “non-event”, since “nothing was found”. But it is inconceivable that the apex intelligence agency under him did not choose to inform him of a case that concerned the senior most Cabinet minister’s security. I hope we are not back in Prime Minister Narasimha Rao’s days, as described by former Home Secretary Madhav Godbole in his Unfinished Innings (1996): the Intelligence Bureau bypassed Home Minister S.B. Chavan while holding secret parleys with the outlawed Ulfa in 1991-92 for an agreement even when “Operation Rhino” was going on. That the Ulfa leaders’ dramatic visit to Delhi passed into history more as a “non-event” was evident by subsequent events.
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