VIP security or a status symbol of politicians

VIPs mostly from among the politicians demand for VIP security to flaunt his status symbol in the socieity. Politicians are the representatives of the people; then why they are afraid of their own life or see any threat to their lives from their own people. Crores of public exchequer is drained on providing security to the VIPs mostly from our political class. In U.S., U.K., only constitutional heads are provided security at government expense while in our country over 45,000 policemen guard over 13,000 VIPs .The number of VIPs is increasing day by day and so is the security demand. In democracy and wellfare state, government is to protect life and property of every citizen of the country. It is duty bound to provide security to the people if the demand has been made are they are to pay for the security. But in the case of politicians as security is provide free of cost, they are treating it as their status symbol.Like Britain and the US in our country also only constitutional heads like President, Prime minister and Chief Justice of the country should be provided security by the government and if any other dignitary besides them demand for security they will have to bear the cost of it. Taking a cue from countries like the U.S. and the U.K. where only constitutional heads such as the President, the Vice-President, the Prime Minister and the Supreme Court Chief Justice, are provided security at the government expense, the Ministry is trying to cull out more information on the practices being followed in other countries on VIP security and hopes to begin a debate on it.As bulk of the VIP protectees are politicians, the big question remains: Who will bell the cat? Home Minister P Chidambaram is himself not very eager to pass through security paraphernalia. The increasing expense on the security of VIPs has become a cause of serious concern. The government must act to cut expenditure on VIP security. The government of India must brought a bill in the Parliament regarding this and enact a law. The country where a little less than half its population is struggling to make both ends meet can not afford to spend 600 crore on the VIP security. This is nothing but the mockery of our democratic system. Once one is elected to Parliament or State Assembly, one becomes the representative of the people. The people have sent their representatives to Parliament and State Assembly because they like them. What is the need of security? It only makes distance between the people and their representative. The public representative must know that they are not Rajas and Maharaja; they are only public representatives. On the one hand our public representatives claim to be the messiah of downtrodden and want to live like Rajas and Maharajas on the other. As far as threat perception of any individual or MP and MLA is concerned, it is the duty of the government to decide who deserves security of which category. Government must ask the VIPs to pay for security. Only a few days back, Parliament was halted on the issue of frisking of our former President APJ Abul Kalam. The parliamentarians took it as rude behaviour to our former constitutional head by the American airlines at Indira Gandhi airport in Delhi because it he was frisked. American airlines officials and staff are bound to go be the rule of their airlines company. They did only their duty by frisking Kalam. They had no intention of hurting our sentiment nor modest personality like president ever took the frisking exercise at airport as hurting or demeaning. With demands for providing protection to VIPs increasing with each passing day, there is serious rethink rightly among top echelons of the Union Home Ministry to streamline and review the entire gamut of VIP security.