Naveen Patnaik, Manmohan Singh

Bhubaneswar, Feb. 20: As the chorus against the all powerful National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) gets shriller, Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik today sought to clarify that he had no intention of politicising the campaign against terror as has been alleged by some UPA ministers.

He said his main objection was to the Union government’s “high-handedness” in this matter and even made a comparison with the Emergency days to drive home his point.

“As the chief minister of Odisha and a citizen of India, the security of the nation is my prime concern as I am sure it is of all the chief ministers in our country. Let me assure you that I have no intention to ‘politicise the campaign against terror’ as has been stated by some of your ministers and senior officers to the media,” Naveen said in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The chief minister, who was the first to hit out against the Union home ministry order empowering the NCTC constituted under the Intelligence Bureau to make arrests and conduct searches without consulting state governments, said his primary objection was to the high-handed manner in which the Centre had tried to address such an important issue.

Stating that he strongly opposed terrorism in any form and was always with the central government in fighting terror, the chief minister said the Centre’s prior consultation with states on the issue would have helped strengthen national security.

The chief minister, who in his earlier letter to the Prime Minister on the issue had accused the UPA government of trying to encroach upon the federal rights of the state governments, cautioned against the tendency towards authoritarianism.

“The creation of NCTC with its director as the designated authority under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and empowering of its officers to arrest, search etc. under section 43-A of the UAP Act by the order dated 3rd February, 2012 does not have legitimacy in the absence of consultation with the state governments for incorporating their views on such a critical subject. One has to be cautious that such orders never translate into the suspension of democratic rights as happened in our country during the Emergency period of the 1970s,” the chief minister’s latest missive warned.

Naveen also sought to remind the Prime Minister that neither he nor the Union home ministry had replied to his first letter on the issue and urged him to initiate a dialogue with the states on the NCTC.

“I am surprised to have received no response from your office or the ministry of home affairs to my letter of February 13, 2012, on this critical matter. I, therefore, request you to urgently initiate the process of consultation with the states,” he said adding that the order concerning the empowerment of NCTC should come into force only after due consultation with state governments.

In his earlier missive to the Prime Minister on February 13, Naveen had said: “Would it not have been advisable for the Union government to have prior consultation with the state governments? This clearly seems to be an infringement on the federal structure of states as enshrined in the Constitution of India.”

Urging the Prime Minister to review the order with “Draconian overtones,” the letter had said: “The people of our nation are aware of their democratic and federal rights, which at times have to be underlined by state governments to the central government. After all, the price of democratic freedom is eternal vigilance. It would seem that the UPA government, at times, knowingly or unknowingly, infringes on those federal rights.”