By Japan K Pathak
Gandhinagar: New Chief Minister of Gujarat (now not that new as he has been in office for quite some time) Vijay Rupani has issued oral instruction that traffic must not be stopped for his convoy to pass. He has last week also decided that his convoy would stop at traffic signals like every other.

Gujarati news channel Etv Gujarati as per this tweet(below) reported that Rupani actually implemented the decision when he was on visit to Vadodara.

CM .@vijayrupanibjp 's convoy stopped at red signal like normal people Watch reality check
.@nanditathhakur .@BJP4Gujarat .@DeshGujarat pic.twitter.com/BfEjgZJOCK

— Brijesh Doshi (@brijdoshi) October 16, 2016

The decision of Rupani has been welcomed by-and-large by people. It is good in perception and also in practice(on commoners part).

But I have some concerns.

The decision that has been taken last week should be open-ended.

If need arises, Rupani should reverse this decision. He must not stick to this decision.

When Rupani’s office conveyed reporters about his decision last week, Rupani could add a line that the decision is open-ended and when urgency is felt or when threat perception is high, the road would be blocked for convoy and traffic signals will be kept on.

Take Anandiben for instance. In first year of his rule, she was facing no threat absolutely. Neither political, nor physical. She had scaled down her security already. Then came Patidar agitation. Post the month of August her security had to be scaled up as threat perception was high following violence during Patidar agitation and subsequent police actions. I myself had passed on screenshots of Facebook conversation to Chief Minister’s office in which some people related to Patidar agitation were wishing to eliminate Anandiben.

You never know what circumstances shape up tomorrow! And therefore decisions on security issue should be kept for professionals to decide.

I remember I had seen then Cheif Minister Chimanbhai Patel’s convoy passing through normal traffic. Police escort vehicle at tailing end would at the most ask vehicles not to overtake convoy and stay away from it but that’s it. I remember riding Kinetic Honda behind Chimanbhai’s convoy. I think even for Keshubhai, road was not blocked, however signals were kept on so that convoy may proceed speedily. Shankersinh as Chief Minister had taken decision to remove red beckon light from all ministerial cars.

Threat perception for Narendrabhai as Chief Minister was definitely very high, and professional decisions regarding passing of his convoy were just and fine with everyone.

There are two aspects in this issue. One is upmanship and VVIPism and other is security and urgency concerns.

Rupani’s decision is much about avoiding what he thinks unnecessary upmanship and VVIPism. But suppose if need arise in future(we hope not) he must drop his decision temporarily or permanently for the sake of security and urgency. Media and common people should not at that time say that look he reversed his decision.

DeshGujarat