Namita Bhattacharya has requested withdrawal of her SPG cover even though the law entitles former PMs and thei... Read More

NEW DELHI: Late PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee ’s foster daughter Namita Bhattacharya has written to the PMO conveying the family’s wish to give up the Krishna Menon Marg bungalow allotted to Vajpayee and shift to their private residence. She has also requested withdrawal of her SPG cover even though the law entitles former PMs and their immediate family members to protection by the elite force based on their threat level which is assessed every year.

Vajpayee’s foster family, which comprises Namita, her husband Ranjan Bhattacharya and their daughter Niharika, stayed with him during his days as prime minister and after he demitted office in 2004. Ranjan Bhattacharya, in fact, worked with Vajpayee as OSD in the PMO. The foster family lived with Vajpayee at 6-A, Krishna Menon Marg as his health failed over the years.

Three months later, the family adopted by Vajpayee owing to his association with college friend and then long-time companion Rajrani Kaul, Namita’s mother, is ready to move out of their Lutyens’ Delhi address and live in a private house. Namita is learnt to have said in her letter to the PMO that SPG cover was intrusive and the security protocol ended up causing inconvenience to the public.

SPG Act allows a former PM and his/her immediate family to retain SPG cover for a year and thereafter based on a threat assessment to be taken at a gap of not more than 12 months. It is by virtue of this provision that Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi have had SPG protection since the Act was amended in the wake of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination to cover former PMs and their immediate family.

