New Delhi: Home Minister P Chidambaram has said the National Security Adviser (NSA) should have very few
executive responsibilities over internal security which he
felt must come under political oversight.
"....but whether he (NSA) should have executive
responsibility, given the pressure of work and time, is I
think an open question. My personal view is that he should
have very few executive responsibilities as far as internal
security is concerned. That should be given to other
professional," he said.
Asked whether the role of NSA should be cut down from
being an intelligence overlord to the Prime Minister's
adviser, Chidambaram told a news channel in an interview that "Let him take over any
of these responsibilities. Although all I said was whoever is
doing whatever, it must be under the political oversight. And
I happen to be the person providing the political oversight.
Therefore everybody accepted that".
The Home Minister's comments assume significance in the
context of M K Narayanan moving out of his role as NSA to West
Bengal as Governor after Chidambaram spoke of restructuring
the Home Ministry and creation of a new security architecture.
When told that it did not happen during his predecessor
Shivraj Patil's time and that he did not assert over the NSA,
he said "That is how it should be. Isn't it? It was not, for
whatever reason I do not know. But if I was going to be
responsible, as I was made responsible on that day, then I was
going to make sure, that I know what was going on.
"The only way that I could know what is going on, what
happened and what did not happen, was to exercise political
oversight over every agency that is concerned with security".
Chidambaram said the NSA is essentially adviser to the
PM and adviser to the National Security Council.
"Surely, he must be in the loop as far as the internal
security is concerned. How can he not be in the loop. He has
to be in the loop," he said.
PTI
First Published: Saturday, February 06, 2010, 23:47