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The minister resigned on Sunday after the government, led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, expressed condemnation over his laid-back functioning.
Patil was asked to submit his resignation immediately after he was refused an invitation along with National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan to attend a key security meeting headed by the prime minister.
Both functionaries were blamed for doing too little to thwart the terrorists' nefarious designs despite having substantial intelligence information on the strike.
Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has replaced Patil, and among his new priorities would be to immediately take charge of the investigation into the Mumbai terror attack amid fingers being pointed towards neighbouring Pakistan.
The Congress Working Committee meeting, headed by party president Sonia Gandhi, also came down heavily on Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh for his failure.
Though there is increasing pressure mounting on Narayanan to quit, the government said he would stay for the time being. Special Secretary for Internal Security M.L. Kumawat too was asked to go; Raman Srivastava, a senior bureaucrat, has taken his place.
Dr Singh himself has taken the charge of the Finance Ministry that is likely to reinforce confidence in the country's economic management in the time of elections.
Top Congress insiders said there was unanimity in the Congress that the government can only save face with a sweeping overhaul. While Patil was an obvious choice for becoming answerable for the lapses, Chidambaram was the immediate preference to succeed him.
Patil, whose performance and style of functioning had often been questioned, was asked by prime minister why his ministry had been failing to act on intelligence warnings on terrorist attacks. This time too, intelligence had warned Maharashtra of terrorists using the sea route to enter Mumbai to unleash death and devastation. Yet Patil and his ministry along with the state government was caught napping.
The government had no specific strategies formulated, nor any plan to counter such terror designs despite it having several high profile portfolios on internal security.
Neither the National Security adviser along with Patil nor the state government chose to work upon any joint strategy to prevent this attack that saw more than 200 innocent people killed and over 300 injured.
Patil had no idea of what was happening in Mumbai even after terrorists entered and sprayed the first bullets on civilians.
He did not choose to call up the Maharashtra chief minister on his own to take stock of the situation. Nor did he find it fit to consult his own ministry on the same, top officials in the Prime Minister's Office said.
Deshmukh called up Patil nearly an hour after the incident asking for NSG commandos to be sent to Mumbai.
Patil then consulted his ministry on what was to be done; spoke to the NSG head directing him to send the NSG commandos before he was summoned for a high-level security meeting by the prime minister.
Some crucial seven hours were lost in how and when to send the NSG team. Finally, when the call was made it took the NSG team three hours to reach Mumbai.
NSG chief J.K. Dutt went on record on Sunday saying that most of the death and destruction occurred before the commandos reached.
ravi@khaleejtimes.com
To see more of the Khaleej Times, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.khaleejtimes.com. Copyright (c) 2008, Khaleej Times, Dubai, United Arab Emirates Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
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