The Hindu : Front Page : ‘It is too little, too late’

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Monday, Dec 01, 2008
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‘It is too little, too late’

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Major political parties have described the Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil’s resignation as “too little, too late,” and said the decision should have been made earlier. The parties include the main Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) ally, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).

Demanding that the UPA government should resign taking responsibility for its “failure” to handle internal security, the BJP spokesperson Prakash Javdekar said: “We have been consistently saying that the government has failed in its handling of terrorism. We want the whole UPA government to go lock, stock and barrel and let the people decide now what approach the country should adopt in the fight against terrorism.”

Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley said Mr. Patil’s resignation as “too little, too late” while blaming the government for having “a weak policy against terror.”

“Too little, too late” was also the term used by the RJD chief Lalu Prasad to describe Mr. Patil’s move. He said Mr. Patil was too late in tendering his resignation and the decision should have been taken earlier.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat said the resignation was just symbolic and the real issues were the weakness in the system which needed to be addressed. She said there was a need to improve the intelligence network, and the Centre-State coordination.

The Communist Party of India has welcomed Mr. Patil’s resignation and said the government must pay serious attention towards the issue of terrorism.

The party national secretary D. Raja said that finally good sense had prevailed and someone had taken the moral responsibility. “The UPA government has seen several failures [on the law and order front] during its four-year rule. This [resignation] was overdue but the issue of terrorism is beyond Mr. Shivraj Patil. The entire government will have to do serious introspection. Terrorism has to be addressed comprehensively and fought firmly,” he added.

Congress tradition

Describing Mr. Patil’s decision to step down as one in line with the party’s tradition, Congress leader Veerappa Moily said the party had a tradition of taking moral responsibility after some “national tragedy” took place.

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