Politics

Government removes SPG cover of former PM Manmohan Singh; Z+ security cover to continue

Updated : August 26, 2019 12:44 PM IST

The Narendra Modi government has removed the Special Protection Group (SPG) from former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's security detail.

The SPG was set up in 1985 after the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984.

Government removes SPG cover of former PM Manmohan Singh; Z+ security cover to continue

The Narendra Modi government has removed the Special Protection Group (SPG) from former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's security detail, according to a News18 report. Quoting sources in the Ministry of Home Affairs, the News18 report stated that a review of the present security cover is a periodical and professional exercise based on threat perception that is purely based on the professional assessment by security agencies.

The former prime minister will continue to have a Z+ security cover, the report added.

The Modi government had renewed Singh's SPG detail for a year after he demitted office in 2014. This was renewed subsequently on an annual basis after reviewing the threats faced by him and his wife Gursharan Kaur. Singh's daughters had given up SPG cover voluntarily in 2014.

The SPG was set up in 1985 after the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984. The Parliament passed the SPG Act in 1988 dedicating the group to protecting the Prime Minister of India.

The original Act did not include former Prime Ministers and it was amended after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, offering protection to all former Prime Ministers and their families for a period of at least 10 years. Gandhi's SPG security was withdrawn when VP Singh came to power in 1989.

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's government conducted a major review of the SPG's operations after it came to power in 1999, and decided to withdraw SPG protection of former PMs PV Narsimha Rao, HD Deve Gowda, and IK Gujral.

In 2003, the Vajpayee government also amended the SPG Act to bring the period of automatic security cover down from 10 years to “a period of one year from the date on which the former Prime Minister ceased to hold office and beyond one year based on the level of threat as decided by the Central Government.”

With Dr Singh's removal, the elite force would now be tasked with protecting only PM Modi, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her children Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi.

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