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The year 2021 for the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Assam unit definitely had a very positive start and it is about to end on an even more confident note. It’s a sense of fearlessness that seems to have charged the party workers and leaders of the state. As a result of this, leaders of Assam state BJP are shunning their personal security officers (PSOs).
“I urge the Chief Minister to discontinue my PSO with immediate effect,” tweeted Manab Deka, BJP’s Member of the Legislative Assembly from the Lakhimpur constituency. A similar wish was expressed by Krishnendu Paul, BJP MLA from Pather Khandi in lower Assam.
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It was on Saturday, at the birthday celebrations of Atal Bihari Vajpayee that Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma urged BJP leaders and office-bearers to give up their PSOs as this is “Congress party’s culture”.
“We don’t have any enemies so why do we need PSO? Who will kill us? So why do we need extra personnel to attend to us? This is Congress culture… I guarantee that there is no threat to any of us. We have done no wrong to anybody and there is no organisation that will come after our blood. Why does the PSO need to attend to the car door or be our factotum? The BJP is inspired and motivated by the indomitable spirit of Great Lachit Barphukon (Ahom General) and if we cannot open the car door ourselves then it’s shame on us. Atal Bihari Vajpayee said the BJP should be different from other political parties. At that time, there were no other political parties except Congress. Are we different from other parties, ask yourselves?” asked the CM.
Quick to respond to the clarion call from the chief minister was the president of BJP’s Karimganj district unit. Subrata Bhattacharjee gave up his two PSOs and thanked them with the traditional Assamese gamosa (towel) for their service.
“I usually do not take a PSO. We should stay away from these sorts of commitments. We are here for the people and we don’t believe that we have enemies. There should be a formal proposal in this regard soon,” he said.
Appreciating the gesture Himanta Biswa Sarma tweeted, “I am in deep gratitude, and grateful to Subrata Bhattacharjee, President BJP Karimganj for having given up his PSO at my request.”
The union ministry of home affairs (MHA) had back in 2017 taken serious note of the “diversion” of critical manpower in many states, especially in the name of providing personal security to a large number of “undeserving” individuals, and asked the states to review the PSO deployment so that those police personnel could be used for addressing genuine issues of the public.
Reacting strongly to the statement of Biswa Sarma, Assam Pradesh Congress president Bhupen Kumar Bora said, “It was the broad daylight murder of Manabendra Sharma that led to a situation for the Congress to seek PSOs. Congress party leader Manabendra Sharma was shot dead in Guwahati while returning from a market in 1991. Sharma’s political rivals had allegedly orchestrated the shooting in nexus with the banned ULFA. Now if the chief minister wants to put an end to the PSO tradition then let things begin from him. If the CM of the state cannot keep security with him then who will? If the state is free from violence then we have no objection to the withdrawal of PSOs; however, the chief minister needs to take responsibility for this.”
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It is factually incorrect to say that having PSOs is Congress Culture, added Debabrata Saikia, leader of the opposition, Assam. “The chief minister now is finding it difficult to align PSOs after he allotted them randomly to BJP leaders as an appeasing gesture. Therefore, he is trying to withdraw this,” he said.
BJP MLA from the Bokajan constituency, Dr Numal Momin has also expressed his desire to give up his two PSOs as he believes that he is competent even without them and he is one among the common who have chosen him.
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