Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking his intervention after Home Minister P. Chidambaram's remarks quoting service rules for IPS officers under which they could invoke them to write to the Centre.
Mr. Modi has chosen to interpret the remarks as “encouraging indiscipline among some police officers of the Gujarat cadre” who have recently been active in submitting statements and affidavits to the Supreme Court and other bodies set up to investigate the 2002 riots in the State.
‘Encouraging indiscipline'
A statement from the Bharatiya Janata Party in New Delhi confirmed the writing of the letter, which had charged Mr. Chidambaram with “intervening” in favour of “some delinquent police officers” and “encouraging indiscipline”, Mr. Modi's letter has also alleged that the Home Minister's remarks were against protocol in a federal structure.
Mr. Modi's letter goes on to say it was an attempt to weaken a “progressive” and “development-oriented” State.
In response to a question from the press here on Friday on whether the Centre would protect Gujarat police officers who had spoken out boldly on the Gujarat riots, Mr. Chidambaram noted that if the officers who invoked certain service rules, the Centre would look into it.
He mentioned that there were certain service rules that could be invoked in certain situations and it was up to the officers concerned to invoke those rules.
‘Federal structure ignored'
While on Friday BJP leader Arun Jaitley chose to respond angrily to Mr. Chidambaram, accusing him of ignoring the federal structure in the country, the party on Saturday first issued a strong statement and later released the contents (not the text) of Mr. Modi's letter to the Prime Minister.
