It looks like Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan is a bit embarrassed about the massive security cover with which he is moving around in Kerala these days.
There were at least three occasions in the Assembly on Monday when he sought to remind members how fearless he really is. "If I was the old Vijayan, I would have long before responded to the Opposition Leader's comment," Pinarayi said of Satheesan's earlier statement that if need be the UDF would not let the Chief Minister out of his official residence. "But now my position does not allow me to respond that way," he said.
Pinarayi also spoke of the days when he walked around, unprotected and without a thought of fear. "That was a time when you people were armed with all the power," he told UDF members with a smile. "Didn't I move around freely, without any fear. You can ask Sudhakaran (KPCC president)," he said with an attitude that suggested that he did not require any protection even now.
"Security arrangements are not made according to our wishes," Pinarayi said. He said the Congress government at the Centre once wanted to increase his protection. "I categorically said no," he said. He said it was basically a nuisance with gun-toting policemen escorting him even inside trains.
The Chief Minister, nonetheless, is aware that he is being sharply criticised for his large travelling convoy. "The convoy need not be seen as my weakness," Pinarayi said, another hint that Pinarayi is deeply protective of his strong man, double-hearted, image.
He said the existing security arrangements for him were made by the Security Review Committee made up of central and state officers. "This committee will meet every six months and review the security arrangements of VIPs," he said.
Pinarayi said he was given Z+ security, same as the level of security thrown around the Governor and "Wayanad MP Rahul Gandhi".
At the same time, he casually added that the police would take extra precautions to prevent accidents when protesters adopt dangerous methods. Meaning, to keep Youth Congress 'black flag wavers' at bay, his convoy would be larger than what Z+ security suggests.
Here is a contradiction. He said his large convoy was just a security response to the dangerous methods adopted by Youth Congress workers. But, in the same breath, he ridiculed the Youth Congress for staging an apology of a protest.
Pinarayi said there were just one or two protesters weakly waving black flags from obscure corners. "Aren't protests about large groups of people coming out together to resist actions and policies they consider wrong. Here we have just one or two people hiding somewhere and jumping out when the Chief Minister's cavalcade passes," Pinarayi said . "I don't think the Youth Congress is such a weak organisation that it cannot find people to stage big protests," he said, using sarcasm to drive the nail hard into the Youth Congress flesh.
The Chief Minister also said that this demonstrated the poor public support for its anti-government protests. "They cannot convince even their cadres to turn up in large numbers against the government," Pinarayi said.
When it was his turn, Opposition Leader V D Satheesan had a counter question. "If there were just one or two people waving black flags why were hundreds of Youth Congress activists arrested in the name of preventive detention. If they were only one or two persons why did you prefer to sit crouched at the centre of such a massive security cover," Satheesan asked.
He said preventive detention was unconstitutional. He said it was being done in the name of Section 151 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
Here is what Section 151 says: "A police officer knowing of a design to commit any cognizable offence may arrest, without orders from a Magistrate and without a warrant, the person so designing, if it appears to such officer that the commission of the offence cannot be otherwise prevented."
Satheesan wanted to know why even men who were asleep in their beds picked up under this section. "Do we have astrologers in the police who can divine that a man who is sleeping would suddenly get up and attack a Chief Minister," he asked.
Satheesan said if the Youth Congress protests were so weak why did the police barge into a Youth Congress meeting held at Perumbavoor in remembrance of a martyr. Earlier, Congress MLA Shafi Parambil had said that the Youth Congress was asked to call off the Perumbavoor meeting because the Chief Minister was passing a few kilometres away from the venue.
Satheesan then said why he had earlier said that the Chief Minister would not be let outside his official residence. "When the Chief Minister travels, it is a public nuisance."
